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HJ-LONGt 





His eager food cry . . . went singing through the 
winter night " (see page 73) 





Some Studies of 
Wild Animal Life 



^Zuthor of 

^/kbrlhern Trails 
School of the Woods 
Beasts of the Field 
Fowls of the Air 
-/7 Little Brother to the Bear 
Following the Deer 
Brier Patch Philosophy 
etc. etc. 

Illustrated by 

% Cfiarles^Sopeland 




BOSTON USA 
AND LONDON 

C1NN& COMPANY 

W£A7H£WZUH PJ}£5S 



n 



♦ LIBRARY of CONGRESS 


Two Ceoles Racetved 


nov i \m 


CopyngW Entry 
CLASS A XXc, NO. 

i ? S 7<?<? 
copy a. 




Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Copyright, 1907 
By WILLIAM J. LONG 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

087.10 ; 





HE reader who seeks the spirit of 
this little book in a single word will 
find it in the chapter called "Wild 
Folk One by One," which is only a 
^est the individuality of all the wood 
folk. Not only do they differ as orders and species, 
eagles from hawks and wolves from foxes, but the 
different individuals of the same species differ widely 
one from another. It is now an established fact in 
biology that no given stock or species ever breeds 
true in all its individuals. This refers, of course, to 
outward, biological differences of form and size and 
color ; and when you study the inner characteris- 
tics, which the biologist invariably neglects, — the 
temper, disposition, and the primitive mind of the 
different animals as manifested in their actions, — 




you realize instantly that no two of them are alike, 
and that to watch them one by one is the only pos- 

^Z) fez /a S ^ e wa y t0 understand them. 

This spring, while I have been digging 
in my alleged garden, a robin has formed 
the habit of lighting on the ground close by my 
feet and picking up the worms that I uncover, 
probably finding this a much easier way of get- 
ting his breakfast than to pull it up out of the 
lawn. Instead of flying away in alarm, like all 
other robins that I have noticed, he runs quickly to 
investigate every worm that I toss down to him ; 
but he will never eat it. He just gives it a whack 
or two, probably from force of habit, and then 
throws it away impatiently with a little side jerk 
of his head. Only the worms that he discovers 
for himself seem to satisfy his somewhat particu- 
lar appetite. 

Over across the way from where the robin fol- 
lows my digging, a woodpecker and some sparrows 
have quarreled for a whole week over the possession 
of a dead stub in a tree, where the sparrows once 
built a clumsy nest and where the woodpecker once 
drilled a neat round hole. The woodpecker first 
began hammering there, idly enough, I think, for 
he had already drilled a deep hole in an apple-tree 
some distance away ; but a female sparrow saw him, 





and, remembering perhaps her own forgotten nest, 
which the winds have long since scattered, she im- 
mediately raised a great row and called in X/ 7 ) ^ 
a dozen other sparrows to help her main- * 
tain her fancied rights. Now neither bird 
will let the other stay near the place in peace, and 
at times it looks as if one were tantalizing the 
other. The woodpecker will approach stealthily, 
look all around for trouble, and then set up a loud 
tattoo. Instantly an angry chirp sounds around the 
corner, where the sparrow shows some intention of 
nesting, and she rushes out at him like a fury, 
calling in a few pugnacious tribesmen to help her, 
and together they chivy the woodpecker out of the 
neighborhood. He may hammer as much as he 
pleases on any other tree, or on the telegraph pole, 
or the resounding tin cover of a house turret, and 
the sparrows pay no attention to him. It is only 
when he lights on that particular stub that they 
get angry. Once, after being hunted away, he 
came back with another woodpecker of a different 
species, a golden-wing, and together they held their 
own for a while, one hammering and the other 
fighting, till the uproar brought in every idle spar- 
row on the street, and in the end the two ham- 
merers were chased away ingloriously. Then the 
little woodpecker began to get even by chivying 




every sparrow he found in the neighborhood of 
the tree with a feather in her beak ; and the little 
^> ^. comedy has ended by both birds abandon- 

ing the stub as a kind of neutral border- 
line, where they can always raise a row 
when so disposed, but where neither can ever settle 
down in peace. 

Now I have watched robins and sparrows and 
woodpeckers more or less ever since I was a child ; 
but these particular birds attract me enough to 
watch and to write about them, simply because 
they show me something about our most familiar 
little neighbors which none of their kind has ever 
shown me before. Why these birds should quarrel 
over an old nesting-place, which neither, probably, 
really wanted, or why this robin more than all others 
of his kind should trust me, but still refuse to eat 
what my hands have touched, while a hundred 
other birds have gladly taken the food that I have 
spread for them, only the birds themselves could 
explain. It is the new fact and the individuality 
which it expresses that interest me, and I cheerfully 
grant to even the least of my neighbors the right to 
their own little whims and notions. 

Among the higher orders of intelligent animals 
that I have watched in the wilderness the indi- 
vidual differences are even more strongly marked. 




Thus, the lynx is usually a cowardly animal, and 

xv 
hunters who scare the wits out of Upweekis with 

a pack of savage dogs, and trappers who /y^) zP 
find him in their traps, frightened and be- ^^TW^T 
wilder ed, in midwinter, when he is also ""*fc^^ 
weakened by starvation, generally tell you dog- 
matically that the lynx never fights or shows 
courage. But I have found him on my own trail 
in the winter woods when he was uncomfortably 
bold in his disposition ; and my friend the keeper 
of the Canadian National Park, who is a big man 
and a brave one, and who has spent the greater 
part of his life close to wild animals, had the most 
uncomfortable experience which he has ever known 
in the woods when he was followed all one after- 
noon by one of these big, silent prowlers, who 
plainly meant mischief and who was not to be 
frightened away. 

This same Canada lynx is also generally set 
down as a snarling, selfish, stupid beast ; but one 
summer I found a den and hid beside it every morn- 
ing at daylight for over p a week, and at the end, 
when I had watched this savage old mother and 
her own little ones without prejudice, I gladly modi- 
fied my own previous opinion of Upweekis the 
Shadow as an essentially selfish and uninteresting 
animal. Indeed, I find that any animal or bird 




becomes interesting the moment you lay aside your 
gun and your prejudices and watch with your heart 
as well as your eyes wide open ; especially 
so when, after an hour's silent watching, 
the animal suddenly does some little signifi- 
cant thing that you never noticed before, and that 
reminds you that this shy little life is, after all, 
akin to your own. 

Those who have kept a variety of dogs and cats 
and horses need no argument to convince them of 
the individuality of their pets ; but all your interest- 
ing stories of your dogs and cats, showing their 
individual characteristics, are merely suggestive of 
the wider individual differences among the more 
intelligent wolves and caribou, and indeed among 
all wild animals whose wits are sharpened by getting 
their own living in a world of many troubles. They 
are much harder to watch and to understand, and 
that is the chief reason why we have not long ago 
discovered more about them. 

Even among those who have had the opportunity 
of watching the rare wild creatures, two things still 
stand in the way of our larger knowledge, namely, 
our hunting and our prejudice. It is simply impos- 
sible for the man who chases through the woods 
with dogs and rifles, intent on killing his game, 
ever to understand an animal. As well expect the 





barbarian who puts a village to fire and slaughter to 
understand the peaceful spirit of the people whom 
he destroys in their terror and confusion, ^/^ ^ 
It is not simply that the hunter is limited ^^^ 
in knowledge by his own pursuits and in- 
terests, but the animals themselves are different ; 
when you meet them in a place where they are 
often hunted they show an entirely different side of 
their nature, — much wilder than when you meet 
them peacefully in the solitudes. And the man who 
goes to the woods with a preconceived idea that 
animals of the same species are all alike, that they 
are governed solely by instinct and show no indi- 
vidual wit or variation, merely binds a thick veil of 
prejudice over his eyes and blunders blindly along, 
missing every significant little thing which makes 
the animal interesting. 

For many years now I have delighted to watch 
wild animals in the wilderness, trying to see with- 
out prejudice just what they do, and trying to 
understand, so far as a man can, just how in their 
own way they live and think and feel. Sometimes 
I creep near and hide and watch them, close at 
hand, until they discover me ; and almost invariably 
at such times they show no fear at first, but only 
an intense curiosity. Sometimes I vary the pro- 
gramme, as in the following chapter on the bear, 



XV111 




when I find a good spot in the wilderness where 
game signs are abundant, and watch there all day 
long, from dawn to sunset, noting quietly 
and carefully every animal from moose to 
wood-mouse that passes along the silent 
trail. And this, when you once find the joy of it, 
is the very best hunting of all. 

This little book is one of the results of these 
happy vacations spent in watching the wild things. 
It aims to do two things : first, to show some of 
the unrecorded facts of animal life exactly as I have 
seen them ; and second, to reproduce as far as pos- 
sible the spirit of the place and the hour, and to let 
you also feel something of that gladness and peace 
which I have always found in the silent places. 

WILLIAM J. LONG 

ly, 1907. 





When the Bear came 
A Sable Hero 
The Cry of the Wolf 
Wild Folk One by One 
The Vagabond 
What For ? 
Wild-Goose Ways . 
Queer Hunting 
Good Fishing . 
Himself 



59 

77 

ii i 

121 

I3 1 

171 
185 
217 



> 
J 





rx FULL PAGE 
1w^ ILLUSl^CTONS 

CRY • • • WENT SINGING THROl V \\ { j . 

WINTER NIGHT" (see page 73) . . . Frontispiece \V ' VfY 7 \ '« T\ 

Page \V^&&*^ 
" MOOWEEN SAT DOWN IN ANOTHER RASPBERRY PATCH, • • • 

AND BEGAN TO EAT GREEDILY" . . . . 3 1 

"UP THEY CAME HAWING, FLAPPING, SCRAMBLING K. 

DESPERATELY" CC / f 

tt ft 

"That first hungry wolf • • • following the trail if , ...\\ 

I HAD MADE AT DUSK " 69 ' $V** mm "XV* 

" Walking on his hind legs and carrying the drag 2f t . \ \ 

IN HIS ARMS 97' j'W >/yt 

"Set his wings and slanted down among his tame %>..'ir^r% \ 

KINDRED" IK, f >V I 

i "-■% ) 

"Standing with one forefoot raised, listening in- "%. % ) ] 

tently" 127 f \m& 

"Then to the ocean and back again" . . .165 f\f \sJ\ 

"All three with raised heads and ears set forward, IJv^' """^V^ 

PLAINLY ASKING A HUNDRED QUESTIONS" . -175 M V^ 

"Rose like a flash and was away with my bait '&->*/ \^ J/ 

BEFORE I HAD TIME TO LIFT THE ROD" . .211 l^ffl^ffl 

"A LITTLE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW NESTLED CLOSE A \ I /V 

AGAINST THE STEM OF A FIR " . . . 227 %/ X / P^ 



Wtt 






=-^: 





HI 




HE long summer afternoon was 
fading away; a solitary hermit- 
thrush was trying to remember 
his spring song over a belated 
nest; the air filled suddenly 
with that marvelously soft, clear gleam that 
precedes the twilight, and cool purple shadows 
began to creep down the western mountain 
into the little wild valley, when the bear came 
for whom I had been watching all day long. 
Now you naturally think of a bear as 
something to kill, if you can ; and because 
he is shy and seldom seen, a summer day is 
not too long to wait for him, especially when 
many thin'gs are happening, meanwhile, to 
give you good hunting. I had found Moo- 
ween's " works " in a burned valley among 

3 



r 




the hills, on my way to a lonely little pond 
where never a fly had been cast, but where, 
i rr Kj&i* sn ^ nevertheless, there were some big trout 
^M^"P^> that I had seen breaking water one 

morning at daylight. Those same big 
trout proved hard to catch ; the day was too 
bright for such shy fellows, and as I fished I 
was thinking more of the bear's works than 
of the best flies or bait to beguile the wary 
ones. So presently I followed my heart back 
to the little wild valley and went nosing along 
the bear's trail to find out what he had been 
doing. 

Here he stopped to lap the water from 
the cold brook, which steals along under 
the wild grasses and vanishes under a great 
fallen log. See the print of his forefeet 
where he stood, and yonder one huge hind 
track to tell you how big he is ! He was 
heading for the blueberry patch, and there — 
just look how he has stripped the bushes, 
champing them between his great jaws, pull- 
ing off green and ripe ones alike, and getting 
as many leaves as berries ! He is a poor 
picker, sure enough. A berry must be such 




a little thing in a bear's big mouth ! I won- 
der how many quarts it would take to satisfy 
him. There he went into the wild _ _ 
raspberry bushes for a little variety. ' r 
Careful old bear! No careless strip- % ^ C[I l 
ping of bushes now, pulling them through 
his mouth and over his tongue roughly, for 
these bushes have prickles on them. Here is 
where he sat down and bent the berry-laden 
vines with his forepaws, mouthing them care- 
fully, taking only the ripest berries and leav- 
ing the others crushed on their stems. With 
a little imagination this is better than trout- 
fishing. One can almost see the old fellow 
sitting here, filling himself with sweet red ber- 
ries and having a good time all by himself. 

There he leaves the raspberry patch and 
heads again for the open. You can trace his 
course a dozen yards ahead by the disturbed 
bushes, showing the silvery under side of 
their leaves. Here he stopped to rip open a 
log for grubs ; here he dug under a root for 
a wood-mouse, probably, and here he rifled an 
ant's nest. Small game this, but Mooween 
likes it ; and you begin to think he is not 





such a terrible fellow, after all, since he spends 
so much of his time and great strength hunt- 

»aw ing grubs and mice and such " sma11 

fir 4 deer '" and is evidentl y content with 

^ what he gets. Do you wonder, now, 

how he can pick a tiny ant out of that mass 
of rubbish with his big tongue without get- 
ting a mouthful of dust and dry chaff? He 
does not do it that way ; he seems to know 
better, and that the moment an ant-hill is dis- 
turbed the inmates will come swarming out, 
running about in alarm, crawling over every- 
thing and back again, and hurrying away with 
the young grubs to hide them from the light, 
which kills them. So he just knocks the top 
off the hill, stirs up the nest, and lies down 
quietly, placing his forepaws where the ants 
are thickest. At first he makes no effort to 
pick up the hurrying insects, workers and 
fighters, which swarm out of their tunnels, 
some to repair the damage, some to attack 
the intruder, and some, the nurses, to take 
care of the young grubs. Mooween waits 
till they crawl over the big black object that 
rests upon the nest and then he begins to 



lick his paws, more and more greedily as he 
tastes the acid things, like a child sucking a 
big pickle. So he gets all he wants 



cleanly from his own paws, instead of 
filling his mouth with dust and chaff, 
as he must do if he attempted to catch them 
in any other way. 

An interesting fellow is Mooween. Yon- 
der is his trail after leaving the ant-hill. 
Here are berries that were in his mouth 
only two or three hours ago, for they are still 
moist; here are others that he tasted the 
day before yesterday, and here is a place 
where he must have passed many times to 
leave such a plain trail among the dense 
bushes. A bear, if not disturbed, almost 
invariably comes back over the same route, 
sometimes the next day, sometimes the next 
week, but always on the same general trail, 
as he makes his rounds from one good 
feeding-ground to another. Judging by his 
works here, Mooween likes the place and 
comes often, and we have only to hide and 
watch for a few days, or perhaps only for a 
few hours, in order to get him. 



h7)e/?me3ear 
Cam 




This was the thought in my head as I left 
my camp at daylight next morning for a long, 

<R*&t* lazy ' satisf y in g da y a11 alone - wi thin 
W* the hour I had crossed the lake, fol- 

SflBlb? lowed a mile of dimly blazed trail, all 

fresh and dripping with dew, and was sitting 
comfortably in the nest I had chosen. This 
was a huge rock, some thirty or forty feet 
high, projecting from the eastern hill, with 
bushes and little trees on the top, where you 
could see for several hundred yards up and 
down the valley. One was sure to see some- 
thing in such a place, if he waited long 
enough, and whichever way the wind blew 
you were well above the ground scent and 
had a big territory under your eyes wherein 
no animal would probably smell you. As 
wild animals seldom look up, you were per- 
fectly safe from their eyes so long as you 
kept still. At least I thought so till a big 
buck came along and taught me differently, 
an hour or two later. 

The sun had not yet looked over the east- 
ern hills when I settled down to watch. A 
wavy line of soft white mist lay over the 



brook, which now and then I heard faintly, 
telling its story to the alder leaves and to 
the mossy stones. Over on the west- ■t./u.^ 
ern mountain a cock partridge began ^ A , 
to drum out of season, in simple glad- 
ness perhaps, as the light ran down the slopes. 
Nearer a few birds, in the second belated 
nesting, were trying to sing cheerily. The 
whole earth lay fresh and moist and sweet 
under my eyes, and the air was filled with 
the delicious fragrance of the early morning. 
Truly it was good to be here alone, with 
no one to talk or to interrupt your own 
thoughts and impressions. I made a soft seat 
and leaned against the stem of a young aspen 
to enjoy it all comfortably. Whatever came 
along, it was sure to be good hunting. My 
field-glasses hung from my neck, open for 
instant use, and my rifle stood leaning against 
a bush ; for I intended to kill the bear, should 
he turn out to be a " big oV he one," as 
Simmo would call him, or even a yearling, 
if his skin were any good at all. A mother 
bear would be safe, for her skin would be 
utterly worthless at this time ; and besides, 






e3ear 





bears do no harm in the woods; they are not 
game-killers. A mother bear would mean one 
™ #> 4 or two more cubs next year, and the 
%^. more bears there are the better for 

one who camps in the big wilderness. 
Presently, in the exquisite morning still- 
f3|> ness, I heard a familiar sound, — krop, krop, 
krop ! and then a soft rustle of leaves and 
one sharp, clear snap of a dry twig. Only a 
deer's dainty foot breaks a twig like that. 
He is up there feeding — two, no, three of 
them — and instantly I am all attention. 
Soon, by a great log that lies near me, in 
the shadow of the eastern hills, I see a small 
animal moving indistinctly. A porcupine, I 
think, for it is too small for a deer, and it 
moves along the log in a rambling, hesitat- 
ing way that is characteristic of the bristling 
fellow, who never seems to know where he 
is going nor what he will do next. Slowly 
the glasses come up to my eyes. I stop 
breathing suddenly, for it is a deer's head, a 
yearling, and she is cropping the plants that 
grow richly along either side of the molder- 
ing log. All the rest of her body is hidden 




in the shadows and underbrush, but the head 
goes searching along the old log, and through 
the glass I can see her eyelids blink jfopjS&fip fif&w, 

impatiently as they are brushed by ^ §|gfe J 
leaves and brambles. 

Suddenly a big doe steps out, in full sight, 
and hides the yearling at her eager feeding. 
For a few moments the old deer stands 
perfectly still, looking down into the valley, 
which is just beginning to brighten in the 
morning light. She is not watching for ene- 
mies now. The early peace still rests over 
all the woods, and there is nothing in her 
quiet bearing to suggest fear. She seems 
to be just looking down over the exquisite 
little familiar place, as if she knew and owned 
it all. All the deer love sightly places, and 
you could search the wilderness over with- 
out finding a prettier spot than this. 

As she stands there, quiet and confident, 
within thirty yards ' of a deadly rifle, the 
underbrush opens and a dappled fawn capers 
out gracefully. Here are three generations 
of deer living together in peace, and they 
will hold together for mutual companionship 



12 



MmffteBear 
aine 




and protection, if the hunters let them alone, 
until the yearling yonder has a fawn of her 
own to care for and to take up all her 



attention. The little fellow seems fat 



and well-fed ; evidently he has no fears, 
and as I watch sympathetically he glides up 
to his mother, lifts his pretty head, while 
she bends down to rub his cheeks and neck 
in quick, gentle little caresses. For a few 
moments only I can watch them, because, 
curiously enough, a deer never feeds long in 
the midst of abundance, but takes a bite here 
and a bite there and moves onward, tasting 
twenty varieties of food within as many min- 
utes and making a continual pleasure of feed- 
ing. Aside from this evident pleasure there 
is probably also a measure of protection in 
the habit, for by changing constantly deer 
keep more alert and watchful, and make it 
more difficult for prowlers like myself to find 
and stalk thei 

five minutes the three deer 
urely almost under my watch- 
tower ; then they cross the 
ggp brook, not stopping 

$8%p 




for even a sip of the delicious water. Every- 
thing they eat at this hour is drenched with 
dew, and so they have no need for 



13 



drinking deeply. Besides, the wild 
animals are wiser than men in that 
they first eat their fill and drink afterwards. 
As they wander up the brook on the opposite 
side I am all expectancy once more, for I 
came down there myself, only a little while 
ago, and presently they must cross my trail 
in the wet grass. Ah, see them now! The 
yearling scented it first, threw up her head, 
and froze in her tracks. Catching her sudden 
alarm the old doe stood alert, sniffing the 
air and turning eyes and ears up and down 
the valley; while the fawn, not knowing 
what it all meant, shrank into a bush to hide 
and stood looking out, his eyes big with 
wonder. A different picture that, and a sad 
commentary on my own ways in the wilder- 
ness. There was no sound, no alarm of any 
kind that I could understand ; but the old 
doe turned abruptly and glided up the hill. 
The fawn followed in his mother's tracks, and 
the yearling made her own trail. A moment 



Whem^fje3ear 
Cam 




later I caught a glimpse of them, standing 

among the big trees on the edge of the green 

hpySffif* *R&£>t* brulee, watching keenly the back trail. 




Then they melted away like shadows 



Wazne. 



in the still woods. 

A half-hour passed over me in the ex- 
quisite place before other sounds came drift- 
ing down the wild hillside, — prut, prut, prut ! 
kwit, kwit I kroo, kroo ! Leaves moved here 
and there; little wavy lines ran along the 
berry bushes, and I knew that a flock of 
partridges had come down to feed, though I 
could see nothing of them, only the shaking 
of leaves and grass stems as they glided about. 
Presently a young bird jumped upon a fallen 
log in plain sight and stretched his neck to 
look. Another and another followed, until 
six were in a row; then the old hen bird 
appeared on the end of the log, glanced over 
her brood to see that all were there, and with- 
out any fuss began to preen herself quietly. 

It was a most tempting sight. At times 
three or four heads were in line, and I found 
myself thinking greedily how many I could 
cut off with a single bullet ; for at this season 



i5 




the young birds are fat and tender, more 

delicious than any chicken. But I was after 

bears, and must keep still ; and besides, •t A n^ £% %#e ^> 

the moment you go hunting for meat / < v r 

you get just that in your head, as if 

the world were only a butcher shop, and you 

miss twenty better things. This hour and 

place are altogether too exquisite for shooting. 

I wonder, now, what in the world are they all 

gawking on that log for, when they ought 

to be filling themselves with sweet berries ? 

Many times before this I had surprised 
a flock of grouse resting on a log or in the 
open woods at this same hour, when they 
ought to be feeding, and had wondered about 
it. Now for the first time it seemed to me 
that I understood. In the late fall, when 
mornings are cold, grouse always seek the 
first sunshine, apparently to warm them- 
selves ; but here their bedraggled feathers 
showed plainly that -the bushes were still too 
wet for comfortable feeding. A grouse loves 
to keep himself perfectly trim and neat, and 
this desire seems to be stronger than the 
desire for food, even in the young birds. For 



, a long time they kept to their dry log, each 

one busy trimming his own feathers, while I 

'&ff% PI watched them with immense interest, 

sir* and the sun P oured down int0 the val " 

ley and dried up the dew. Then they 
jumped down, one by one, and I could trace 
the flock for a long distance at their feeding, 
and occasionally I had a glimpse of a young 
bird jumping into sight for an instant to 
peck at the berries that hung too high for 
his ordinary reach. 

Just below me w r as a clump of tall rasp- 
berry bushes well laden with the delicious 
fruit. When the flock found this they re- 
mained there, quiet and unseen, for several 
moments, evidently picking up the berries 
that had fallen to the ground. Then a bush 
swayed and bent, and I saw a young bird 
plainly trying to climb up into it. But he 
could get no grip on the slender stem ; it 
was too fragile to bear his weight, and pres- 
ently he tumbled off, shaking down a shower 
of ripe berries, which he ate greedily. Soon 
the flock passed out of sight, and I forgot all 
about them in watching another shaking of 



the bushes that was going on all the while 
close at hand. 

For some moments I had noticed - - _ %*^ 
it ; now, as my young partridges had ^ g^ 
nothing more to show me, I turned 
my glasses in the direction of the spot and 1 
watched intently. Every now and then a 
bush would shake as something struck it 
from beneath ; but the leaves were too thick, 
and try as I would I could see nothing defi- 
nitely. Another flock of young birds, I 
thought, but hardly had I come to this con- 
clusion when a big drummer partridge ap- 
peared for an instant on top of a stump, 
looked all around a few moments keenly, 
jumped back into the thicket of raspberries, 
and immediately the bushes began to shake 
again. No flock there, certainly, for when 
you find a drummer you find a selfish bird 
that looks after himself only and takes no 
thought for his mate and her brood of little 
ones. Soon he came out in plain sight and 
minced along in my direction, now halting 
to turn himself about like a dancing 
master at a Virginia reel 







mmfffeSear 
mSfcame 




« now spreading his tail and ruff, and now 
mounting a log to walk it proudly from end 
to end. I suppose he was only exer- 



cising caution, in his own way, in a 



world of many dangers ; but he made 
the impression on me of a fine dandy, dis- 
playing himself for the benefit of any hens 
that might be watching him. 

As he stopped and turned himself about, 
spreading and closing his beautiful tail, on a 
log just below me, my hand reached almost 
unconsciously for the rifle. " You are a fine, 
fat bird," I thought, " but you do nothing for 
the support of your family, and nobody would 
miss you if you were gone. I could take your 
head off, now, without half trying, and you 
would be a rare bonne bouche wrapped in 
bacon strips and browned on a spit over 
the coals. Hello ! what in the world are you 
doing now ? " 

For Seksagadagee the grouse had jumped 
down from his log, glided into a raspberry 
thicket under my eyes, and instantly a tall 
bush shivered violently and a few ripe berries 
rattled to the ground. A few moments of 



19 




intent watching, then another tall bush quiv- 
ered as something struck it, and more ripe 
berries were shaken from their stems. , _ 

It was plain enough now what he ^ r 
was doing, though I could hardly see 
a feather, only the swift motion in the bushes, 
a shake, and then the falling berries. Instead 
of trying to climb the slender stems, like a 
foolish young grouse, he simply ran against 
them, making a battering-ram of himself, or 
else struck them with his powerful wing and 
so shook off a few of the ripe berries for his 
own enjoyment. So he passed on through 
the thicket and down to the brook, where I 
soon lost him among the alders. 

Good hunting this ! I am glad enough 
now that I did not take his head off at first 
sight, as I might have done. It is better to 
get an idea from a bird, to understand a little 
better how he lives, than to make a breakfast 
of him. Both he and I, evidently, are debtors 
to the bear for which I am watching, he for 
his atom of life, and I for a small grain of 
knowledge. Whoever it is that keeps the 
world's accounts, or writes things down in 




the "book of remembrance," he must have a 
20 

curious trial balance to strike at the end of 

mmmesear ev !7 f: ?; owever bi f or H " le - 

~g^> He had been gone tor perhaps an 

hour and nothing of any great interest 
had passed under my leafy watch-tower. It 
was getting towards the hour when all game 
that stirs about in the early dawn has fed full 
and is moving slowly to its morning rest. 
The birds had ceased calling; an intense 
silence brooded over the great wilderness. 
Suddenly I felt, as I often do when alone in 
the woods, that something was watching 
me, and turned my head quickly. That was 
my only mistake ; for it frightened the big 
buck that stood close behind, watching me 
intently. He had come down the hill quietly, 
probably to drink at the brook. Some slight 
motion of mine had caught his eye, and he 
had stopped instantly to find out what I was. 
He stood on the hillside in plain sight, not 
twenty yards away, and almost on my own 
level. In the whole sweep of landscape there 
was not another spot where he could have 
approached without my first seeing or hearing 



Cam 



him. I have no idea how long he had been 
standing there behind me, trying to make out 
the queer unknown thing on the rock; 
and had I remained still, or had I 
turned my head very slowly, he would 
undoubtedly have puzzled over it still longer. 
As it was, I had one splendid glimpse of 
him standing like a magnificent statue, his 
antlers raised, his black nose pointing straight 
at me like an accusing finger, and a look of 
inexpressible wildness in his bright eyes as 
they looked straight into mine. Then he 
whirled on his hind legs, leaped over a great 
rock, his white flag flying defiantly in my 
face, and I heard the sound of his feet, bump, 
bump, bump ! after he vanished in the shelter 
and silence of the friendly woods. 

How selfish even an animal gets when 
he has only himself to care for ! A doe, used 
to caring for others, had she stood in his 
place, would have sounded her alarm-blast 
at the first jump to warn every deer within 
hearing that an enemy was in sight. But not 
so with this selfish old buck, used to think- 
ing for himself alone. He had watched me 



21 



e3ear 





22 




silently, cunningly, till I betrayed myself; 
then he jumped away without a sound, car- 

MemteBear in § "^ for an J othe ; ***** 

~gs- might be coming down to drink at 

^» the brook. If I were after meat now, I 

would wait awhile, till you forgot your fears, 
and pick up your trail; and I think I know 
where I could find you, later in the day, when 
you think all things are resting lazily like 
yourself. As it is, good luck to you, Hetokh 
the buck. This hunting satisfies me perfectly. 
Only, when the snows come, I hope it will be 
your selfish trail and not that of the careful 
old doe that the hunters will follow. 

The day passed more slowly after Hetokh 
had gone, till the noon sun shone down 
straight and clear in the valley, when I ate 
a handful of figs and pilot-bread thankfully 
and crept down from my rock to drink at 
the little brook. For an hour or more a pair 
of big hawks had been circling high over me, 
whistling shrilly, and their calls were an- 
swered by some young hawks which I could 
see occasionally, flying over the big woods 
across the valley. They knew that I did not 



belong here on the rock, but they were 
uncertain about me till I crawled out and 



2 3 




showed myself plainly when they me/ ^ 3egr 

whirled away towards their young ^ 5^fe 
and did not come back again. 

Hour after hour passed swiftly over the 
beautiful place, and the very spirit of the 
big wilderness, all stillness and peace, took 
possession of the watcher. The big game 
was resting lazily, hidden away in the fir- 
thickets on the hillsides, and the small 
things had the big world all to themselves. 
Now it was a chipmunk — ; Chickchickoo- 
weesep, as Simmo calls him — who kept up a 
regular, sleepy chunk-a-chunk, chunk-a-chunk, 
in most monotonous measure, as if he were 
the nurse of the world, to keep everything 
dozing in the afternoon sunshine. Again it 
was a waving line of bushes, moving slowly 
across the valley, and try as I would I could 
not see whether fur or feathers moved be- 
neath it. Now Cheokhes the mink glided 
in and out of sight, following the hidden 
brook on his still hunting. Again a little 
wild bird, which had never seen a man 



24 



m& 




before, approached within reach of my hand 
and looked at me with round, inquisitive 

\p Tt/^&r 1 e y es ' anc * a ^ ter a moment ' s observation 
;^^> flew down to whir his little wings in 

my face in order to make me move; 
and again it was only an insect, creeping in 
and out among the moss and lichens under 
my hand and acting as if his were the only 
important life in the universe, as it probably 
was to him. 

So the long, happy hours passed, all too 
swiftly. A wonderful tide of soft, clear light 
that filled the air and made everything bril- 
liant rolled suddenly over the valley, and I 
knew, without once looking at my watch, 
that I had been sitting here fourteen hours 
and that the twilight would follow speedily. 
A moose appeared silently at the lower end 
of the valley, followed the dim trail for a 
dozen yards, the light shining on the tips 
of his big antlers, and vanished among the 
alders by the brook. Over on the opposite 
hill a deer began to feed, krop, krop, krop ! as 
if it were just morning, as I wished it to be 
in my heart, in order that I might have so 





many more hours of solitude and immense 

peace. High overhead a night-hawk began 

booming; little birds began to chirp Ufo e *tffi e <n ear 

as they gathered for the night's rest, ^ r ' 

and— What was that? Cai22( 

Up on the hill on my left, where the west- 
ern light shone clearest, a log bumped sud- 
denly; a twig cracked heavily, heedlessly, 
as if the creature that passed through the 
solitude yonder had little concern how he 
walked. Mooween the bear was coming, at 
last, for that is the way he feeds in the 
burned lands, when he thinks no human 
enemy is near to watch him. 

A mountain-ash shivered suddenly, just 
below where I had heard the twig crack; 
the underbrush opened and out he came, a 
splendid big brute, black and glossy, and 
went straight to a raspberry patch. My 
glasses were upon him instantly, watching 
every suggestive movement as he sat down 
and gathered the bushes with his paws and 
mouthed them carefully, stripping off all the 
ripe berries. He was near enough to shoot. 
My hand reached slowly for the rifle; but 



26 



it was too entertaining just to watch him 
sitting there, all unconscious, enjoying him- 

m&me.Sear s f f t/ wn ,Tn a ? 1 1" had 

^r^^» plenty of time to kill him. He was 

^ hungry, evidently; it would take many 

berries to satisfy that enormous appetite. 
When he had stripped all the bushes within 
reach he turned away impatiently and, neg- 
lecting other berries all around him, came 
out of the raspberry patch straight towards 
me. I could see his brown muzzle now, and 
the little sharp eyes that looked only in front 
of his nose. He turned his great head sud- 
denly, as if he had scented something, and 
went straight through two clumps of blue- 
berry bushes for an ant-hill that lay in plain 
sight. This he stirred up roughly, knocking 
the top aside, and sat down beside it, regard- 
^ ing it intently. There was nothing in the 
nest, evidently. Perhaps he had eaten them 
all up, long ago, or else he had no mind for 
sour ants as yet, until he had cloyed himself 
with honey or sweet fruit. After a moment's 
intent watching of the ant-hill, and before I had 
recovered from my own intense absorption or 





remembered that this was the bear I had 

2 7 
come to kill, he rose suddenly and vanished 

in a dense fir-thicket. 7 - _ %~, 

t u .11 1. ' v ^i W)em0£3ear 

I could still trace his course dimly, -, ^gfe 
for he was near at hand, and wherever 
he went he made the tip of a bush sway here 
and there, as he touched its stem. Presently 
a hollow bump ! rolled out of the thicket ; 
then the sound of rotten wood being torn 
to pieces. Ten minutes passed slowly, more 
slowly than any other in the long day, with- 
out any sound or motion from Mooween. 
I thought I had lost him, when he appeared 
again, much farther away, on the opposite 
hillside, where charred and fallen logs lay 
thickest. He stopped at one, gave it a heavy 
thump with his paw and turned his head side- 
wise to listen ; then he went on, gathering a 
few blueberries casually, till he found another 
log that suited him. Again the heavy thump 
of his forepaw, again the quick twisting of his 
head to listen ; then he slid one paw under 
the log to grip it from the opposite side, drove 
the big claws of his other paw into the top, 
and with one wrench laid the log open. In 




£ an instant he was busy, jumping about ex- 
citedly, running his tongue up and down over 

%4* *fcu?/» the molderin S wood ' Peking up every 
%£ grub and worm and beetle that he 

^ had exposed, and that now crawled or 

darted back to cover. 

When he had eaten all the tidbits he came 
quartering down the hill in my direction, 
and twice in plain sight I saw him repeat 
the interesting performance. He would bat 
a log with his forepaw and instantly turn his 
head to lay his ear closer, just as a robin 
turns his head to listen and to locate the 
worm that he hears working underground. 
The blow was intended, evidently, to stir up 
the hidden insect life and set it moving, 
so that Mooween could hear it. If he heard 
nothing, he would go on till he found an- 
other log that suited him and give that a 
thump, twisting his head alertly to listen for 
results. When he heard his small game stir- 
ring he would tear the log to pieces; and 
then it was immensely entertaining to see 
him hopping about, all life and animation 
now, thrusting his nose into crevices, lapping 



eagerly with his tongue, and before he had 
swallowed one morsel jumping away to catch 
another. And when a grub escaped 
him and his tongue swept up only 



29 

M)ei§Me3ear 



rotten wood, he would get mad as a 
hatter and put both paws up to his ears, like 
an angry child, and wiggle and shake him- 
self. Then he would aim a spiteful blow at 
the spot where the grub had disappeared, 
ripping out a shower of dead brown wood 
with his powerful claws ; and instantly he 
would forget his anger and everything else 
in trying to catch one, two — a whole nest 
of unexpected grubs which his blow had left 
exposed and squirming. 

He was near me now and just in front, 
where even the poorest of shots could hardly 
miss him. Slowly, regretfully, I must con- 
fess, my hand crept towards the rifle that 
had stood there all the day idle; but it 
stopped again as Mooween sat down in 
another raspberry patch, where the sweet 
red berries were thickest, and began to eat 
them greedily, all unmindful of the enemy 
that lay now with head and shoulders over 





the edge of the rock, watching every uncon- 
scious movement. That was the whole 

lA/h3£iftp ftp&r trouble * l had st0 PP ed t0 watch him 
Star? ■ instead of shooting at the first good 
■ chance ; and the moment you stop 

to watch an animal with any sympathetic or 
human interest, you forget all about your 
rifle. And the longer you watch the harder 
it is to bring yourself to shoot. It seemed 
only fair, when a bear had given you a happy 
day and a whole lot of good hunting, to 
acknowledge the debt and to leave to some 
other fellow whatever fun there might be in 
killing him. Besides, he was so much more 
interesting alive than dead ; his skin was 
little good at this season, and — I began to 
make excuses now — I wondered if I still 
had light enough left to follow the dim trail 
back through the darkening woods to where 
I had left my canoe in the morning twilight. 
Suddenly the leaves over my head began 
to rustle. It had been calm and still all day; 
now a night-wind eddied over my rock and 
set all the aspen leaves to trembling. On 
the instant Mooween sprang to his feet. 




" Mooween sat down in another raspberry patch, 
and began to eat greedily " 



33 




The careless, confident air of this great 
prowler of the northern woods vanished in 
tense alertness. He threw his nose , - 

■ 4. 4.-U u i w u a M)ei^Bk03ear 

into the breeze, rocking his head up ^ r 
and down so as to try more air and 
catch every tainted atom. He turned his 
head up, then down the valley; looked past 
my rock twice, but never noticed or sus- 
pected what he must have plainly seen had 
he raised his eyes, — a man leaning far over 
the edge and watching him with silent in- 
tentness. He turned swiftly, glided into the 
nearest thicket, and for several long minutes 
not a leaf stirred. He was in there some- 
where, sitting perfectly still, rocking his 
brown muzzle up and down in the effort to 
find out what the thing was that had sent 
him this subtle, alarming message. Then a 
waving line of brush-tops was drawn slowly, 
cautiously up over the hill. On a great bare 
rock I saw him plainly once more, as he 
turned to the back trail to listen and sniff 
and watch, to find out if it could tell him any- 
thing. No chance of surprising him again, 
even had I wished it, for now his keen senses 



34 



MiemfffeBear 
Wazne 




were all alert for every slightest warning; 
yet so still was he, so absorbed in sifting the 
many messages that float unnoticed 



through the big woods, that a man 
might pass close under his watch- 
tower without ever noticing Mooween stand- 
ing silent among the shadows. Then he 
glided down from his rock and vanished into 
the vast silence and mystery that comes at 
twilight over the wilderness. 




r". / *?3H 




35 





)AMJE 



ran® 




VER the beach came the 
ducks, — coots, broad- 
bills, golden eyes, dusky 
mallards, driving in like 
arrows on the blasts of 
a landward gale, and 



set their stiff wings and 
came down with a long splashing plunge, 
quacking their delight at the new feeding- 
grounds. For the ice was out of the big 
pond at last; though here and there, where 
the winter storms had broken over the beach, 
it was still piled up in gray, uncouth masses 

37 



x 



~ along the shore. For days the birds had 
been coming in, tired of salt mussels as a 
^ steady diet, and weary of being tossed 

s~£r about on the shoals where the long 

ocean rollers broke into sand and 
spray over their feeding-grounds. First they 
came to the outer harbor, only to be routed 
out of every resting-place by the busy scol- 
lop-boats; and the fishermen watched their 
unwilling flight and whispered to their hunt- 
ing friends that there was good shooting at 
Coskata, " rafts and slathers of ducks," they 
said, all going into the pond whenever the 
boats stirred them up. 

That is why I slept at the life-saving station 
that night when the northeaster began to 
blow, and why dawn found me tramping 
the shore of the pond, carelessly routing out 
scattered bunches of ducks that had come 
in ahead of me. No need to crawl and hide 
and strain my eyes now in the gloom, for 
the storm-tossed birds would surely be back 
again before I was half ready for them. 

Hunters had been here already, in pleasant 
weather; but to-day, with a gale blowing and 



squalls of sleet driving into one's face like 
hot needles, they would all be snug in the 
fish-houses swapping stories, and I 
might have the big pond all to my- 
self. My stand was a huge pile of 
broken ice where I hollowed out a nest, lining 
it w r ith seaweed, and threw an old sheet over 
my shoulders so as to look like one of the ice 
cakes. In front of me a dozen wooden decoys 
were bobbing about merrily, looking natural 
enough to deceive even a duck as they rose 
and dipped to the choppy waves and swung 
and veered to the snow-squalls. 

I know not exactly what the joy of such 
an experience is ; but the joy is there, nev 
theless, that cannot be expressed. 
The sleet drives into you ; your 
fingers ache on the gun-barrels, 
and your toes long since have 
happily lost all 
feelings, when 
wish, wish, wish, 
wish ! sounds the 
rapid, pulsating 
beat of wings 



39 



disable 
"Herd. 




J& 



swooping down to your decoys, and lo ! you 
are all warm again. And when the swift 

-2*7 C /*/ wm § s are st ^^' an d on ty the squall 

>-x/ rumbles and hisses among the ice 

cakes, you are still cozy at heart, and 

a certain elemental gladness thrills you as 

you chatter through your teeth the old 

Anglo-Saxon song of The Seafarer: 

The hail flew in showers about me; and there I heard 

only 
The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves and the cry of 

the swan. 
For pastime the gannets' cry served me ; the swough 

of the seals 
For laughter of men ; and for mead drink the call of 

the sea-mews. 
The shadows of night became darker; it snowed from 

the north ; 
The world was enchained by the frost ; hail fell upon 

earth — 
'Twas the coldest of grain. Yet the thoughts of my 

heart now are throbbing 
To test the sea-streams, the salt waves in tumultuous 

play. 

Indeed, it is all there still, the thrill and 
power and uplift of the elements that made 
the old Saxon glad at heart in the midst of 




his icy fetters ; and we have only to step a 
little way out of our steam-warmed houses 
to find that Nature and the heart of ^7 c?*-^ z^ 7^ 

, , v , . r ^n Sable 

man are not changed with our civili- cUfg^^A 
zation. But it takes more than a flight 
of birds and a gun and a dog to get at the 
root of the matter in duck-shooting. 

In an hour I had all the birds I wanted, 
picking out an occasional black duck and a 
rare redhead from the swift flights, and leav- 
ing the rest to veer and bob curiously and 
lift their wings in salutation to my stupid 
decoys. Then I laid aside the gun gladly, 
and began to watch the flocks with a more 
humane interest. 

As the light brightened in the east other 
and more worthy hunters had appeared 
stealthily. First a wild and half-starved cat 
caught my eye, crouching in a tuft of dry 
wobski grass, staring hungrily at my decoys 
with fierce unblinking eyes. For some of 
the summer visitors here have an atrocious 
way of bringing cats with them, and then 
turning the creatures adrift when they flit 
away with the birds to their winter homes. 



4 2 



usable 
<7iero 



These abandoned cats haunt the gutters and 
back yards for one season ; then, finding the 
hand of every man and the tooth of 



JZ 



every dog against them, they take 
to the swamps and rear their broods 
of savage, round-headed offspring, and pick 
up a wild living from the tides and birds 
and rabbits. 

After the big cat came scores of crows, 
flapping in silently without any trace of the 
clamor that marks their autumn gatherings, 
and began to search industriously the grass 
and matted weeds along the shore. More 
intelligent than the cats, they 
had followed the hunters when 
the ice broke up, and were now 
looking for wounded birds which 
had died overnight, and which they 
ate ravenously. Here and there my 
glasses showed me a 
group of the sable ban- 
dits tearing at a 
duck which one of 
them had discov- 
ered, and which he 




shared peaceably with certain of his fellows. 
What puzzled me — and what puzzles me 
still, though I have watched them yy Gahld* 
many times gleaning after the hunt- c7-f£*r>A 
ers — was that only a certain num- 
ber would come down to share a find of 
this kind, while a hundred more half-starved 
crows, which saw them plainly, would go 
on with their ceaseless hunting in the coves 
and matted grasses. Sometimes only three 
or four crows would gather about a dead 
duck; and again a dozen would surround 
him in a dense black circle, each standing 
in his place but never mounting the game 
to claim it for his own, as vultures and 
beasts of prey invariably do. Near these 
feeding groups were often scores of other 
crows that had found nothing, and that went 
on their hungry way without a thought, ap- 
parently, of joining the scant feast. 

I am inclined to think that family relations 
hold longer among the birds than we have 
supposed. I have known old birds to help 
younger ones — presumably their own off- 
spring — in building their first nests; and 



^ 



among gregarious birds, like the crows and 
geese, the parents look after the welfare of 
^ ~ \ » their little ones more or less all 
p-?w winter. Probably these crows on the 

shore represented family groups, each 
of which had a right to what the others 
found. Whether a few strangers joined them, 
and the great majority of the flock kept away 
simply because they recognized that one 
small duck was not enough to fill so many 
mouths, is purely a matter of guesswork. 
The one thing that is certain to me, after 
long watching, is that the crows under- 
stand perfectly their own regulations, and 
that these busy groups on the shore were 
not the result of chance or accident 

Just below me a solitary, long-winged 
^fc-crow, attracted perhaps by 



my decoys, came 
swinging up the 
shore, yew-yawing 
like an old boat in 
the heavy squalls 
of wind. S u d- 
denly he poised 




X. 




like a hawk and plunged down into a great 
bed of matted grass. Out of it on the instant 
shot a wing-broken duck with the ^ ^ , F 

u t i a . -i ^ Sable 

crow alter him, hovering and stnk- ^y- J 
ing savagely with his beak, while the 
duck flapped his useless wing and splashed 
and skittered and tried to dive in the shal- 
low water. Over him like a black fate hung 
the crow, with one sharp call, which was 
answered instantly by another crow that 
darted over my head without seeing me. 
Together they chivied the poor duck back 
toward his hiding-place. There the savage 
beaks soon finished him, the waves threw 
him ashore, and within the minute five 
crows were gathered about him, tearing at 
the warm, rich flesh as if famished. 

Far up on my left, on the narrow strip of 
beach that separated the pond from the open 
ocean, I had occasional glimpses of a crow 
mounting up and up till he poised high over 
the hard sand left by the tide. Something 
flashed white as it fell, with the crow swoop- 
ing down after it. He had found some hard- 
shelled clam that the waves had rolled up, 



^ 



too hard for his beak to break, and was crack- 
46 

ing it by letting it fall from the height. It is 

^ _ . a queer kind of hunting, which one 

f~fj ma y n °te among gulls and crows in 

midwinter when they follow the tide- 
line, and I was watching it curiously when 
all thoughts of peaceful habits and obser- 
vation were driven pell-mell out of my head. 
Over the beach from the open sea came 
a great gang of geese, flying low and un- 
steadily, as if weary of the long flight and 
the ceaseless battle with the wind. 

I watched them breathlessly as they 
slanted down into the pond, paying no 
heed to my little decoys, but lighting far 
out in the middle, where they were per- 
fectly safe. There they gathered in a close 
group, spread and gathered again, and sat 
silently, with raised heads, studying the 
shores of the unknown pond where they 
had taken refuge. I was on the wrong side 
that time. After a half-hour's watching they 
glided slowly to an open beach, under the 
lee of a sand-bank, on the opposite side of 
the pond. Through my glasses I watched 




them enviously, resting themselves, soothing 
their tired wings and preening their feathers. 

It was a hard tramp around the /7 rrt » ; ^ 

, . , ^ , ^ Sable 

pond; but geese are rare game here, cXfg^^A 
and I was chilled with sitting still so 
long in my icy nest and glad to be moving 
again. My ducks were left in the stand, with 
a waif upon them to show that they were 
mine should any hunters chance that way; 
my lunch also, pushed under the edge of an 
ice cake so that the sleet should not wet and 
freeze it into cold comfort before my return. 
Leaving every weight but the gun and field- 
glass and a few shells, I crept out, still cov- 
ered by the sheet, so that the geese would 
not notice me. 

Directly behind my stand was a low bluff. 
I climbed this very slowly, rolled over the 
summit, and hurried around the pond, keep- 
ing myself well hidden behind banks and 
bushes. I had gained the sand-ridges behind 
which the geese were huddled, and was crawl- 
ing over them like a turtle, sure of a perfect 
shot and at least three geese, when the stalk 
was brought to an exasperating end. Some 



4 8 



crows flying along the beach saw me creep- 



*c 



ing, and flew high over me to see what 

"* /»/ ^ was a ^ a ^ out - They saw the big 

Vt 1 / gang of geese resting unsuspiciously 

under the bank, and swooped down 

with a sharp note of warning. I knew it was 

all up then; for many times before this the 

crows had come between me and game in the 

same way. The geese jumped on the instant, 

still fifty yards out of range, set their broad 

wings to the wind, and slanted up like kites ; 

then turned at the leader's deep honk and 

bore away steadily out of sight and hearing. 

j& I went down to the shore, with what small 

jfF^ philosophy the squalls had left anchored in 

jtatife me, and began to examine the tracks and 

^1* signs of the geese, led- by the subtle fascina- 

-* ^ * i tion that always holds me to the spot where 

any wild creatures have been. A faint clamor 

across the pond caught 
•'' my attention and I 
saw crows, a score of 
them, dropping down 
over the bluff behind 
my stand. 





Through the glass I saw others standing 
on the ice cakes, peering about inquisitively. 
Then one came out of the stand, ^ ~ , • 

u a ■ * , fi a SI Sable 

perched an instant on the rim, and c yr * 
jumped back again. Others followed 
him ; one, two, a dozen were inside, and 
feathers began to fly up in the wind. They 
had found my ducks and lunch, and judging 
by the way they tumbled down in an end- 
less stream over the bank, no law or fam- 
ily relationship seemed to set any limit to 
the numbers. Haw ! haw ! down they came. 
They had driven off my geese, and were 
now making sad havoc of my own ducks. 
It took me nearly an hour to double the 
pond and get safely behind the bluff. It 
was all still now; apparently every crow 
within sight or hearing had come to the 
unexpected feast and was stuffing himself 
with duck down in my stand. Slipping in 
a couple of lighter shells, I ran forward. 
One might overlook the geese — : for that 
was not a bad thing when you looked at it 
from the birds' viewpoint — but there were 
plundered nests and the death of young 



#1 



song-birds at the crows' door, and plenty of 
other old scores to settle. The high banks hid 
me perfectly, and the gale blew away 
'Ptlj every sound of my swift approach. 

I was still some hundreds of yards 
from the edge of the bluff when a sharp 
ka-ka ! made me turn quickly. From some 
pine woods behind me two crows darted out 
and rushed for the bluff, crying a loud warn- 
ing at every flap of their wings. Whether 
they were sentinels or not, I do not know; 
but they certainly knew where the flock was 
hidden, all unconscious of danger, and the 
moment I appeared running for the bluff 
they darted in ahead of me to give the alarm. 
I watched them curiously as they sped 
straight for the spot, struggling desperately 
against the gale and sounding the danger- 
note in a continuous cry. I looked to see 
the flock rise clamoring over the bluff; but 
they were hidden too deep to hear, and the 
wind carried away the sentinels' alarm. 

The two watchmen had not forgotten their 
caution and were evidently aiming to pass 
well out of range ; but they forgot the gale, 



and in every squall they were pushed steadily 
to leeward. As they crossed in front of me 
a gust of wind flung them up almost 
over my head. The gun spoke once, 
and the leader tumbled headlong at 
my feet. The second barrel missed fire, and 
the other crow whirled in a panic over my 
head and darted back for the woods whence 
he had come. 

Still the flock under the bluff 
did not appear, as I expected ; for 
the squall had carried off even the 
heavy report, or made it sound so 
faint and far away that in a region 
of hunters it was unheeded 
Slipping in fresh shells, I 
was running forward, when 
again the sharp ka-ka ! ka-ka ! 
sounded behind me ; and I 
turned to see the second crow 
heading like an arrow for the bluff, sound- 
ing his alarm-note as he came on. 

I stopped again to watch with intense 
interest as he neared the flock. He was 
closer to the ground this time and flying 



5i 



disable. 
Tferd 






*c 



more swiftly ; but again he made the same 
sad blunder. The gale drove him steadily 

to leeward, and as he crossed be- 
-~f****G fore me a furious blast hurled him 

up over my head. The gun-sight cov- 
ered him swiftly; and then, so near was 
he, I saw his wild, frightened eyes looking 
straight into mine along the shining gun- 
barrels. What he thought or felt, who can 
tell? There, just beyond, he saw his fellow- 
sentinel lying still, a drop of bright red 
clinging to the point of his dark beak, the 
rough wind ruffling his glossy blue-black 
feathers; here beneath him was the man 
who had done it, who could do it again; 
and there — 

He whirled wildly at thought of the un- 
conscious flock and sounded the alarm-cry 
at the top of his lungs. Had I pressed the 
trigger curling snugly under my finger, that 
cry to others to save themselves would have 
been his last. However poor and blind the 
understanding behind those frightened eyes, 
he could still see a duty to his fellows and 
be faithful, crying out to them to escape 



even at the terrible moment when death 

53 
reached up from below to cut him down. 

It all occurred in an instant; but in ^ Gahklc* 

that instant I had some thoughts and cxr^ J* 

a whole lot of feelings, and the first 

and last of them was that a man must not 

shoot a bird like that. 

Slowly the gun came down ; my eyes fol- 
lowed him with wonder and admiration as 
panic seized him again at sight of the man 
and his dead mate, and he whirled away on 
the squall. Then I ran swiftly to the edge 
of the bluff and peeked over. 

Oh, you black rascals ! with all your cun- 
ning, here you are fairly caught at last ; and 
a moment ago I was ready enough to send 
some of you over the long flight to join the 
ducks. I wish you knew, I wish I could tell 
you, how much you owe to a little forgotten 
sentinel out yonder. For one must needs 
spare life, even the poor life of a crow, or a 
thief, after seeing another ready to die to 
save it. 

Such a flurry of feathers whirled up out 
of the stand and danced a saraband in mad 



X 



glee over the ice cakes ! They had ripped 
open my lunch, too; among the hopping 
^ _ _ _ blue backs I could see bits of the 
Vtl/ paper that had wrapped it up. Some 

new-comers tore ravenously at what 
was left of the ducks; others stood about 
working and stretching their necks to worry 
down a big morsel; still others, too full for 
another mouthful, perched solemnly on the 
edges of the stand, looking down curiously 
at the feast which had no more personal in- 
terest for them. The humor of the situation 
fell upon me, the tramp over the marshes in 
the cold, comfortless hour before daylight, 
the long watch in the ice and sleet, the 
escaped geese, and then the crows' fat feast 
at the end of my labors. I had barely seen 
all this at a glance, and had begun to poke 
some of that fun at myself which my friends 
kept in liberal store for me when I used to 
go duck-hunting, when the warning ka-ka ! 
rattled on the wind and the sentinel shot 
over my head again. 

The crows heard him this time and gave 
heed on the instant. A cloud of duck feathers, 













4 












* 


J9 





Up they came hawing, flappinj 
scrambling desperately " 



driven by the whirring wings, rolled up out 
of the stand, like smoke from a tug's funnel. 
Here and there a single crow burst ^ c 
out of the cloud like a bomb, with a ^7r P 
squawk and a yell as he saw me so 
near, which served only to increase the 
clamor and confusion below. Up they came 
hawing, flapping, scrambling desperately to 
get steerage way, till the gale caught them 
and whirled them in a crazy rout over my 
head. But after the first startled instant I 
scarcely saw them, my eyes being fastened 
on a single small crow, the sentinel. He 
turned sharply as the flock took alarm, was 
swept aside by a blast of wind, but returned 
again, and then led the wild rush over the 
moors to the pines where he had kept watch. 
How much did he understand of what he 
had done ? That is a question which only a 
crow could answer ; but a man does not have 
to watch the black flocks very long to see that 
they generally know very well what they are 
doing, and depend very little on blind impulse. 
He had seen guns and hunters and falling 
birds more than once, and knew the danger; 



£ he heard the terrifying roar, the whistle of 

shot, the thud of his stricken mate ; yet 

^r ^ r * he came back twice in the face of it 

V-x/ a U to warn his fellows. Only a poor 

hungry crow, of course, and we don't 

know what goes on in his head. But when 

a soldier on the outpost jumps to answer a 

call like that, we understand exactly where 

to place him. 



** 





59 





LD NOEL and I were camped 
on the caribou trails, one winter, 
away up on the edge of the bar- 
ren lands. It was a curious kind 
of Christmas vacation I had chosen, — to 
leave friends and creature comforts in order 
to shiver and lie awake beside a fire in the 
snow; but fun is what you like to do, and 
whenever the North calls you go, if you can, 
without caring much whether it is work or 
play that lies just ahead of you. I was there 
for no better reason than simply because I 
wanted to be there, and incidentally because 
I hoped to find out a little about the ways 
of wolves and caribou. Old Noel was there 
because he generally went where I wanted 
him to go, and because he was wiser than 
any other man, I think, about the life of 

animals. He knew, when I called him, that 

61 



«t 







there would be plenty of pork, plenty of tea, 

plenty of tobacco, plenty of warm blankets, 

^rr ^» ^% and that within a day or two a fat 

ff/j~f/?* young caribou would be hanging up 

in front of the commoosie to keep the 

wolf from the door, or better, perhaps, to 

bring him sniffing around where we slept 

through the long winter night. So Noel had 

no present worries or troubles, being only an 

Indian. As for the rest, he can hardly yet 

understand why I should follow a herd of 

caribou all day long, and sleep cold on the 

trail, just to find out something which he 

has always known. 

For instance, one day I came in at dusk, 
worn out from a long tramp in the snow that 
was too light and soft for snowshoes, to find 
him stroking the beautiful skin of a fisher 
which he had taken from one of his traps. 
As I ate in tired silence he smoked his pipe 
and watched me curiously. 

" Find-um any caribou to-day ? " he asked 
suddenly. 

" Yes, Noel, a big herd up on 
"s:. the fourth barren." 





" Kill-um any dem caribou ? " he demanded, , 
as if killing were the only end of hunting. 

" No, I got too interested watching <j^ e g Q * 
a few yearlings playing by themselves, jy* ^ 
Then a big lynx appeared, hiding and 
playing like a kitten, on top of a rock and — " 

11 You shoot-um dat link ? " he broke in ; 
and the fire that sleeps in an Indian's eyes 
began to sparkle with the hunter's interest. 

" No," I said, shamefaced ; " he seemed to 
be trying to decoy the young caribou where 
he could jump on one. I got too close, 
and he saw me before I thought of shoot- 
ing him." 

" By cosh," said Noel indignantly, " I go 
wid you nex' time ! Dat link skin fetch-um 
six dollars. Why you go huntin' anyway ? " 

"Just for the love of it, Noel, — a boy's 
love of the big woods and the rivers and 
the silent places. I am hunting for the boy 
chiefly, the boy who was myself, whom I lost 
long ago, but whom I am always hoping to 
find again, either here or in the Happy Hunt- 
ing Grounds. Do you ever follow his trail, 
Noel, and forget that you are an old man?" 




, But an Indian, used to silence and mys- 

04 ... 

tery as his daily portion, never answers a 

^ r - -, ^, question like that ; and you are never 

Xa/t^T/^ ^ u i te sure wna t he is thinking about. 
Often when he has questioned me 
about books and men, about cities and 
churches and the great sea and the life of 
other lands, I find him regarding me in- 
tently across the camp-fire, asking silently 
why a man who has seen and learned so 
much should spend his time puzzling out 
the simple problem of the differ- 
ence between a mink and a sable 
track, though he never makes the 
slightest effort to catch either 
animal when he has the chance. 
The lost boy also puzzles him, 
and a week after I have forgot- 
ten the subject he takes it up at 
the exact point where 
we broke off. 
On the night of which 
K I am writing we had 
~'!x gone out together and 
% had followed the caribou 





5 ^ <V; ■ 



herd too far from our snug little nest under 



65 



me *t~4Voir 




a ledge, and were camped on the trail. At 

dusk we had scraped a hole in the ^_- _ „ 

77jg Cry o/^ 

snow with our snowshoes, made a lit- ' ~^ 

tie hut of slanting poles and boughs, 
covered deeply with snow to keep it warm, 
and a huge fire of hard wood sang the forest 
songs sleepily in front of our little com- 
moosie. The night was intensely cold and 
still; the smoke stood straight up from the 
camp-fire ; the stars glittered and grew big, 
and the snow lay like a garment of jewels 
over all the earth. The moon shone white 
and cold, and under it the spruce forest 
stood, as always in the still night, waiting, 
waiting apparently for something that never 
comes. Far off, like a ghost of a sound, a 
low moan trembled suddenly on the hori- 
zon. I answered it with a shiver, which 
was partly the cold, partly the sense of ele- 
mental mystery that never leaves me in 
the wilderness, and glided away into the 
shadows of the big woods. 

A few hundred yards behind our com- 
moosie there was a cliff on the edge of a 




great barren. I climbed to the top and stood 
there alone in the vast silence of the winter 
^_ ^ jzr* night, so cold, so still that one's nerves 

lA/yi// 7 * were all a-tingle, and the chiming of a 
million fairy bells seemed to consti- 
tute the silence. At my feet stretched the 
open barren, desolate, fearfully desolate and 
lifeless under the moonlight; and all around 
the black forest stood waiting. Though 
silent, all the world seemed struggling in 
some strange way for speech, seemed freez- 
ing to death in the grip of the winter night 
and waiting in tense expectancy for some 
great voice to express its suffering. 

Suddenly the voice came. From the woods 
close at hand a sound broke out, — a terrible 
sound, beginning in a low moan, swelling 
out into a roar that filled the forest like 
the sound of a cataract, and vanishing again 
in a wail of unimaginable woe. Even the 
echoes, so ready to respond to every call, 
seemed frightened at this appalling outcry. 
Not one answered, for the sound itself 
seemed to fill the lonely world and to hush 
and startle all things. 




A hundred times before this, alone on 

67 
the mountain top, on the wide sea, on the 

ice-bound northern wastes, or at mid- ^— . ^ ~ 

'Tfif* Cry or 

night in the unbroken forest, I had ff^^ k f\r 1/7* 

tried to feel the spirit of primal nature; 
to know what the first man felt in the pres- 
ence of boundless mystery. Here was my 
answer with a vengeance. I could get no 
nearer to primal man and beast and nature 
than to stand here in the snow and moon- 
light, with the desolate barren before me, 
the black woods all around, and that ap- 
palling voice of a great beast filling all the 
night. And I confess that, though the sensa- 
tion was magnificent, it was not altogether 
pleasant. My old primitive ancestors had 
lived so many centuries on the thin edge of 
flight and panic that their first impulse to 
run was still strong in my own heel 
my back was cold, and my nerves 
were all up on edge, jarred and 
jangled as if some rough hand were JJ 
rubbing them with sandpaper. It 
was all over in an instant; but 
one can feel a lot in a small 



'Ttfb'k 





.~ moment when he is alone in the woods at 
night, and for the first time the howl of a 

^ _ ^_ great timber-wolf rolls over his head. 

in*-, ffrJT//?* Again the tense silence settled over 
the wilderness. The curious impres- 
sion of chiming silver bells was ringing in 
my ears when once more the terrible sound 
came rushing, tumbling, ululating through 
the startled woods. This time it was an- 
swered. From the woods far across the bar- 
ren a cry broke out ; no echo, certainly, but 
the unmistakable voice of a big starving 
wolf. Another howl on my left; and from 
the low hills behind me and beyond the 
commoosie a fourth uttered his cry of desola- 
tion. For a half-hour I stood there, shiver- 
ing in spite of myself ; now watching keenly 
over the barren, hoping to see the gather- 
ing of the savage pack; now calculating in 
the blessed silence whether that first hungry 
wolf could be following the trail I had made 
at dusk; and all the while wondering at the 
meaning of this fearful cry of woe, woe, woe, 
which seemed to fill all the world. Then it 
was all still again ; the open barren lay white 




1 hat first hungry wolf 
I had made at dusk " 



following the trail 




and cold under the moon ; the black spruces 
stood huddled together in groups, waiting. 

Suddenly there was another sound. ^-^ ^ ^ 

Far away on my left, and behind me, jy* ~ K^/£>i//^ 

a cry rang out from a distant barren 
— Hoooo-ow ! ow ! ow ! ow ! No voice of woe 
this time, but a keen, eager summoning call 
that sang through the woods like a rifle 
bullet. Come, come, come, come ! it seemed 
to say; but the impression was not one of 
articulate sound but only of indefinite feel- 
ing. A single eager yelp, the irrepressible 
outburst of a hungry young wolf, answered 
the new call. There was a sudden move- 
ment on my right ; a shadow broke out of 
the woods, rolled swiftly across the open 
barren, and vanished in the black spruces. 
Silence settled again over the wil- 
derness, and I went slowly back 
to camp. 

Old Noel had awakened at the 
cry of the wolves and 
hurried out on my 
trail, bringing the 
rifle. When we sat 





down before the fire again I went straight 
to the point. 
c— | f> ^ " Noel," I said, " can a wolf talk ? " 

,£ > ^nfr " Talk? course he talk - Eve,t ' in g 

talk in hees own way." 

" Then what did that first wolf say, Noel ? " 

" Oh, he say he hongry ; lonely too, p'raps. 

If you call dat way, hwolf he always come." 

" And that other wolf, Noel, 'way over to 

the southwest on the other barren, what did 

he say ? " 

" Oh, he say, ' Come over here, hurry up,' " 
said Noel ; and, as is always the case when I 
am most interested and want to talk, not 
another word could I get out of him. 

At daylight I had stirred the fire and 
boiled the kettle and was away on the trail. 
One seldom really sleeps in the open during 
these intensely cold nights, but just dozes 
and wakes and feeds the fire and pulls his 
blankets closer, and springs up rested, fresh 
and strong, in the morning. I hurried to the 
place where I had seen that shadow vanish 
in the woods, picked up the trail of a running 
wolf and followed it for miles, straight as a 




string, to a dense fir thicket on the sheltered 
side of a little barren. Here several cari- 
bou had rested awhile in the snow, rjj^^ y» ^/? 
and here — the record was plain as 
a printed page — a wolf had found 
them and, instead of hunting in wolf fashion, 
had circled to leeward and stalked and killed 
one with the stealth of a lynx creeping on a 
hidden rabbit. It was undoubtedly his eager 
food cry that went singing through the win- 
ter night and brought every hungry wolf 
within hearing to share the good luck that 
had fallen to him alone. 

I followed the trails all morning, and at 
noon was back again at the home camp, 
whither Noel had preceded me. Four hun- 
gry Indians were there, and Noel was feed- 
ing them full from my scant store. The last 
of my pork had vanished, and my tea and 
Noel's tobacco seemed in a pitifully low state 
to one who knows how essential these things 
are in the northern winter ; but though they 
were on their way out to plenty, these 
stranger Indians had appropriated my neces- 
sities as freely as they would have taken 



bark from a birch tree to light their fire. 
74 

When they had gone Noel and I sat down 

<7 ^ ^ yd to talk. I was comparatively new to 

it/si/jF* ^ ie w0 °d s an d t° the ways of wolves, 
and I expressed my eager wonder at 




what I had read in the snow. 

"Oh," said Noel, " dat 's not'ing. Dat's 
Sf^v: just hwolf way; Injun way, too; share w'at 
he got." 

" So I see," said I, thinking of my tea and 
pork. " But, Noel, did you ever hear of the 
primitive, primordial beast ? " 

"What kind animal dat?" said Noel, all 
interest, as he invariably is upon the rare 
occasions when I venture to become his 
teacher. 

" Why, don't you see, Noel, the primordial 
beast is the original animal that Clote Scarpe 
created, the wolf and the caribou, with their 
savage instincts and greed and selfishness 
and all that. Our social philosophers down 
yonder, who pretend to explain our curious 
civilization, tell us that all our trouble comes 
from the primordial wolf ; that our fierce and 
savage competition — " 



"Wat dat t'ing — some tother beast dat 
live down your way ? " demanded Noel. 

" Oh, no ; competition is said to 
be the life of our trade," I said dubi- 



75 




The Cry of 
ffie ^-WoijF 

ously. "It means that when you have 
a little business I come along with a big- 
ger one and crowd you out, without think- 
ing much of your wife and babies ; and that 
when you are hungry I buy all the meat in 
sight and charge you big prices, so as to 
get rich by making you poorer." 

"And you t'ink dat come from hwolf?" 
said Noel indignantly. " Tell me, what dat 
hwolf do when he find-um lot meat last 
night ? " 

" He called in the others before he had 
taken a mouthful himself," I said honestly. 

" And what dem same caribou do when 
it cold ? " 

" They make a ring against the wind or 
storm and put the weakest inside. Their 
bodies keep the little ones warm, and when 
danger comes the big ones meet it first," I 
answered, giving him back some of his own 
teaching. 



> " Den why you call-um selfish ? Why you 

call-um bad beasts? By cosh, now," said 

< Thi^ Crv n/** Noe] ' takin g his ax and P eerin g ilv 
li/r%//^ tently through the woods for a birch 
log for our night fire, "when poor 
Injun come live down yonder, I hope dat 
competition man gets a little more hwolf in 
hees heart. Hoooo-ow ! owl owl owl" And 
again, in perfect imitation, the thrilling food 
cry of the big timber-wolf went singing 
through the still woods. 





77 




just 



NDER my window, in the old 
student days at Andover, a pair 
of rose-breasted grosbeaks built 
their nest in an apple-tree at 
the corner of Bartlett Hall, and 
beneath my favorite reading-seat. I 




watched them there with more than ordinary 
interest from the moment the site was chosen 
until the young birds were led away by their 
parents to learn the ways of the world. No 
better opportunity was ever given to study 
the life of a bird family; for I had only to 
turn my head away from the pile of books, 
and there was the nest with the mother 
bird standing by, so near that I could see 
her eyes wink. 

79 




£ I sat very quiet at the window, never 

climbed to the nest, spread food occasion- 
7 J*-- p ir ally, and drove away sundry cats and 
/lr>& F\v/lr>& ^°Y S anc ^ one despicable egg-collector ; 
and so it may be that the birds re- 
garded me as a friend, and were less con- 
strained than usual. Certainly they showed 
little fear of me, though shy enough with 
other men. Once, while I was reading a 
book on the old bench under the nest, the 
male, a gorgeous fellow, came down and 
perched on the chain between two posts 
behind me. After watching a moment with 
round, inquisitive eyes he came hitching 
and twittering along till within reach of my 
hand, where he turned his head from side to 
side and looked me all over, and twittered 
back as I talked to him softly. 

Another day, when I worked at my table, 
the female flew to the open window and 
called to me excitedly. I went to the win- 
dow at once, but saw nothing unusual. Still 
she zigzagged back and forth between my 
window and a thick lilac bush at the foot 
of the tree where her nest was, calling a 



continuous alarm-note. When I ran out she 
met me at the steps and led me straight to 
the lilac, where, parting the leaves 
and branches, I found a cat hiding 
on a knot at the farther side of the 
apple-tree, waiting with cold green eyes till 
the alarm should blow over. But I am get- 
ting ahead of my story. 

Like many other birds, when engaged in 
any good work, the grosbeaks furnished a 
curious commentary on our human endeav- 
ors. The female did most of the work, and 
the male did all the celebrating. In collect- 
ing materials and in shaping the nest the 
female was busy as a bee in clover-blossom 
time, hurrying back and forth and doing an 
astonishing amount of work between sunrise 
and sunset. Meanwhile the male whistled 
and sang and frolicked about, bub- 
bling over like a bobolink with the 
joy of springtime, but doing 
no useful work whatever, zr^ 
When his mate ^-^ ^/^ 
came back with 
new material he 



Wi/dFoIK 

One3yOne 





£ would fly to meet her, fluttering about her, 

cheeping and singing, as if he were praising 

t r-r w & *r ner f° r h er diligence. Then he would 

>^^^ ***rs^r*s* look on with immense importance as 

pnenyune , . ., ^ ^ .-,••. 

she worked at the nest, rounding it 



with her own breast to give it the shape she 
wanted. As he bubbled over extravagantly 
'zyT*' in his praise her busy, silent air seemed to 

say, " Go 'way now with your blarney." But 
she liked it, nevertheless, and when, in excess 
of zeal, he would bustle away and come back 
with one small straw, she would take it from 
his beak and work it in with her own abun- 
dant collection. 

When the material was at last arranged to 
suit her the two birds would stand together 
on a twig, and she seemed, from her voice 
and attitude and from his sudden dejection, 
to be scolding him for his idleness. The 
lecture ended, she would fly straight away to 
the foot of a bank where material was plen- 
tiful, and he would start just as diligently in 
another direction. Unfortunately he had to 
cross some chains swinging between the 
stone posts about the dormitories, and he 



83 




could never cross a chain without lighting 
upon it. The impact of his flight would 
sometimes set the chain swaying T T . T T „ , T 

Wild FblK 

slightly, and he enjoyed the new Q ne ^yQ ne 
sensation of swinging, fluttering his 
wings and stretching his neck and tip-tilting 
his tail to keep his balance. When the mo- 
tion ceased he would flit up into an elm-tree, 
catch an insect or two, whistle exuberantly, 
and forget all about the work till he heard 
his mate returning, calling gladly as she 
came on. Then — three times I saw him do 
it — the lazy rascal slipped up to the nest, 
hurriedly pulled out of it a mouthful of 
straws and, hopping to the end of the branch, 
held them out to his mate to show her what 
good work he had been doing while she was 
gone. At last she caught him, and flew at 
him in a rage, and drove him out of the tree, 
scattering her own material over the lawn in 
her indignation. 

Later, when she was brooding her eggs, 
the male showed a very different side of his 
character. Though I had known grosbeaks 
all my life, I discovered then that he has one 



8 4 




song very different from his ordinary melo- 
dious warble. It is low and sweet, and seems 
-. 7 intended for his mate alone; for I 
r\~^ z**,^in^ never heard him use it except when 

OneByOne . , ,. - , A u 

St — ^p sne was brooding her eggs and he 

^ was standing close beside her. From my 
window I could hardly hear it, close at 
hand, though I could distinguish his whis- 
tling song half-way across the big campus; 
but when sitting on the old bench under the 
nest I often heard it clearly, and could see 
him standing very still beside his brooding 
mate, or bending down as if to breathe the 
exquisite little melody into her ears, as one 
would whisper a secret. Birds of all kinds 
are naturally quieter near their own nests; 
but in this low song of the grosbeak there 
seemed to be more than the usual precau- 
tion against listening enemies. 

Always, late at night, I would open my 
window near the nest before I blew my light 
out ; and then as the light vanished I would 
hear a stir and a surprised twitter from my 
little neighbors, as if they missed the friendly 
shining of my lamp in the darkness. And 



85 




often at midnight, as I sat at the open win- 
dow, breathing deep of the fragrance of the 
summer night and listening in the 
tender, immeasurable silence, I would // a /} 
hear a faint sweet song by the nest, ^G^ 

so fine that it was more like the voice of 
an insect than of a hardy bird, — as if the 
grosbeak were dreaming and still singing 
in his dreams. 

Just behind the dormitory another pair of 
grosbeaks built their nest in a linden tree. 
Unlike the other, it was hidden away where 
no eyes but my own ever discovered it. The 
birds themselves were shy, secretive, silent, 
as different from their kind on the other side 
of the house as it was possible for birds to be. 
Though I watched them more or less all the 
early summer, I saw nothing different from 
what I had often seen in other grosbeaks; 
while hardly a day went by without revealing 
some new or interesting trait in the birds 
under my window. This was partly, perhaps, 
because I watched the latter with more sym- 
pathetic interest, as one regards the little sug- 
gestive nothings of his own children ; but 




£ partly also because the birds themselves were 
different in character and disposition. 
lAf/ZrJf^n/If ^ was ^ e same room where I be- 
O/lf* fi Vdllf 1 fri en d e d a hornet that got drunk at 
every opportunity, as recorded else- 
where, and from which, on winter holidays, 
I often went out fox-hunting with OF Roby, 
a sad-faced hound that lost his life, at last, 
in following over thin ice a cunning tramp 
fox that had already led more than one fool- 
ish dog to the railroad tracks ; and the chief 
lesson of the grosbeak families was this, that 
every life, however small, has its own prob- 
lems, its own particular joys and sorrows, 
and out of these things it develops its own 
individuality. 

Here at last we are on debatable ground, 
and one must go softly. Let the simplest 
illustration suffice to get our bearings. You 
hit a dog with a stick, and the dog yelps, 
tucks his tail between his legs and melts 
away like a scared rabbit; only the dog 
looks back over his shoulder, and the rabbit 
can see behind without looking. Here is a 
beautifully simple case of reflex action and 





instinct, the kind that is numerously re- ~ 
corded in works of experimentation upon 
animals by the comparative psych ol- «,- ~ 
ogists. Now hit another dog in the ^f p2n nf M 
same place with the same stick, and 
this dog, without saying a word and so quick 
that you forget to take an observation on 
his tail, turns and gets his teeth into your 
leg. Obviously here is a case where appar- 
ently similar causes do not produce similar 
results. The second dog may be own brother 
to the first, born and reared under precisely 
the same conditions, and our much-cherished 
law of reflexes ought to apply perfectly, but 
it does not. A new element has come in to 
modify the result, — the element of disposi- 
tion. "Any stick will do to beat a dog with," 
says Sancho Panza, and the rule may be 
safely adopted by the psychologists; but 
what the dog will do is always an open 
question, depending entirely on the charac- 
ter, disposition, and experiences of the par- 
ticular animal under the stick. 

With the element of disposition another 
and more baffling element enters into our 




£~ study, the element of individual freedom, 

which may be real, or only apparent, ac- 

WFrj finite C0I "d m & t0 one ' s y i ew of the universe 

fine* FtV/lllf* anc * °^ Augustine's philosophy; but 

p^---"^\-\ which is, in either case, an element 

^ to be dealt with seriously, since at any 

moment it may upset the most carefully laid 

scheme of experimentation. 

Once, in my more enthusiastic salad days, 
when after reading sundry English and Ger- 
man psychologists it seemed somewhat easier 
to write a book on animal psychology than 
it does now, I shut up an old cat with her 
litter of kittens in a cage made especially for 
the purpose. There was a trap-door in the 
cage, so arranged that by stepping on a 
spring the door would open to let kitty out ; 
while entrance was easily gained through the 
roof by means of an inclined board. My 
immediate object was to find out whether 
the old cat, after discovering the secret of 
exit, would show it to her kittens. And that 
was only one of numerous experiments I 
made to determine how far an animal con- 
sciously teaches its young the things that 




they would never know of themselves, led ~ 
solely by their own instincts and experience. 

The old cat found the spring in a 
day or two without any help from me, yi '**£ (*„/)*%£* 

and after that went out and in as she ' 

pleased. But she never taught the trick to 
her little ones. Instead, I saw her one day 
cuff one of her kittens away from the corner 
where the spring was, and where he might 
easily have found the way out himself. When 
the time came she pressed the spring and let 
all her kittens out, and never entered the 
cage again. To this day I am unable to say 
whether she was unwilling to teach, or feared 
a trap, or whether, being a wise old cat in 
her way, she preferred to leave them in the 
cage, where they were safe from prowling 
dogs, while she roamed about at her pleasure. 
Meanwhile a friend told me enthusiastically 
of his own cat, which had learned to open a 
door by climbing on a box and pressing down 
the latch. Then she taught the trick success- 
fully to three out of her four kittens. 

This unknown element of individuality car- 
ries us over the border-land of science into 



90 



M/c/ro/x 

QneDyOne 




a fascinating realm, where as yet only a few 
pioneers have made any exploration. Here 
the hard and fast rules laid down by 
the scientists and comparative psy- 
chologists apply only in the most gen- 
eral way, as we apply the adjective shrewd 
indiscriminately to all Yankees, and volatile 
to all Frenchmen, and the word instinct to 
all bird migration. Sooner or later science 
will explore the new field, as educators have 
begun the great task of exploring the child 
mind and determining its general laws ; but 
for the present one cannot live with a child, 
or watch a single animal closely and sym- 
pathetically for a single season, without find- 
ing much that refuses scientific analysis, at 
least in our present ignorance, and which 
one must interpret, lacking other standards, 
by the measure of his own life, which is, 
after all, the only thing that a man under- 
stands even a little. 

It is a big world, globe-trotters to the con- 
trary notwithstanding, and Nature seems to 
abhor repetition as she abhors a vacuum. 
Owners of dogs and cats and horses need no 



argument to convince them of the individu- 
ality of their pets. The only question is, 
Do wild animals of the same species 



9i 



WfldFoIK 

One3yOne 



differ as widely in habits and char- 
acteristics as the domestic animals? 
Personally, after many years of watching 
animals in their native woods, I am con- \| 
vinced that the wild creature is more individ- 
ual than the animal dwelling in our houses 
and stables. Contact with man generally 
serves to dull the native wit of an animal 
and reduce him to a creature of habit and 
dependence. The ducks and turkeys of our 
barn-yards hold no comparison with the wild 
creatures in their native ponds and woods; 
the cows and sheep are far below the stand- 
ards of the deer and bighorn of the forests 
and mountains. Even the dog suffers in 
comparison with the timber-wolf; 
and after watching for a season a i 
litter of collie puppies in my friend's 
stable and a litter of fox cubs on a 
wild New England hill- §| 
side, I was obliged to Sj 
confess, though "'"'£■&£'■ 





92 




I am fond of dogs, that the foxes were more 
interesting and individual in their actions. 

Once, with an old hunter who had 
VV£lUlU£i\ i earnec i mucn f his wonderful animal 

5^^BT* ^ ore fr° m ^ e Indians, I set a deadfall 

f ^ for a big black bear that had taken to raid- 

ing the sheepfolds. At first the cunning old 
fellow would not go near the trap; then, 
when the sheep were guarded by day and 
locked up by night, and a trail of honey 
was led through the woods to the deadfall, 
he began to investigate the new source of 
supply. The deadfall was set beside the huge 
stump of a pine-tree. From either side of the 
stump a row of stout stakes was driven in a 
half-circle almost meeting in front, making 
a snug little pen with one narrow door, op- 
posite the pine, by which alone Mooween 
might enter. Across the entrance was laid a 
single large log, and over it the heavy dead- 
fall was suspended by a trigger and weighted 
with a dozen other logs. 

Now in comparison with wolves or foxes 
most bears are easily caught in a deadfall, 
the general idea seeming to be that a bear in 



approaching the trap will put one forepaw 
over the bed-log and reach in the other paw 
to drag out the bait ; which, of course, 



93 



releases the trigger and brings the 
whole crushing weight down on the 
small of his back, catching him and generally 
killing him between the fall and the bed-log. 
Nine out of ten bears, if they were inexperi- 
enced enough to meddle with the trap at all, 
would do just this thing; but our particular 
bear did not. First he licked up all the 
honey as far as the trap, and went away 
discreetly. The next night, with the taste 
of honey in his mouth, he broke into the pen 
from the side, sprung the trap harmlessly, 
and ate up all the bait. The crash of the 
falling logs would have scared another bear 
into a panic and made him suspicious of all 
such traps for life; but Mooween thought 
he understood such things. Two nights later 
he came back and repeated his performance ; 
only, as we had driven an extra row of stakes, 
he did not bother to break in, but climbed 
up the rear side of the stump, where he was 
perfectly safe from the falling log, and again 



WfldFoIR 
One3yOne 





sprung the trap and ate up everything in 

sight. Whereupon the old hunter vowed he 

would catch that particular bear if it 

n Fk n took a11 summer - 

(P?^p f yo/?e We took away the falUog and set 

a steel trap just inside the pen, covering it 
carefully with twigs and moss and leaves, 
just like the forest floor. Then the old 
hunter broke forty or fifty short twigs and 
stuck them in the ground here and there, 
some inside the pen, and many more scat- 
tered along the path in front. On the top 
of each twig he stuck a piece of rank meat 
and smeared everything with honey. When 
Mooween came again he was so busy, lick- 
ing up the scattered scraps and looking for 
more, that he forgot, apparently, all about 
^J? the danger. Whether or not he investigated 
the deadfall, I do not know. Probably he 
saw at a glance that the deadly thing which 
had twice crashed down at his touch was 
no longer suspended over the en- 
trance ; so he walked in, still 
looking for the sweet morsels that 
% sprinkled the ground 




1 I 




so unaccountably. As he stepped over the 

bed-log he put his forepaw squarely into the 

iron jaws of the trap, which snapped 

like lightning, and he was caught ^ ne3 y Qne 

We took up the trail the next morn- ^c^ 

ing. Attached to the trap by an iron chain 
was an eight-foot log, not heavy enough to 
hold the bear, but more than enough to bother 
him as it jerked along, catching in roots and 
bushes, and leaving a trail that even a dull- 
nosed lynx might follow. Suddenly, however, 
the trail of the clog vanished, and the puzzled 
old hunter stood peering in every direction 
to see where it had gone. It was precisely 
like the trail of a cunning old buck, or a 
fisher, that sometimes ends abruptly with a 
single footprint, as if the creature had taken 
wings; only Mooween with the heavy clog 
could hardly leap far to one side, or return 
on his trail stepping daintily in his own foot- 
prints, as deer and fox and fisher do when 
they are followed. 

As I circled widely, trying to hit the trail 
again, I came upon a bear's fresh tracks in 
the mud by a little brook. There was no 




trace of the clog, and my first thought was 

that another bear was near; but in another 

moment I saw that the new trail 

nn^ftSnnp showed onl y the P rints of the bear ' s 

f^ — / SV % hind feet. I whistled for the old 

hunter, who came quickly and looked once 
at the telltale tracks. " That 's him ; he 's 
walkin' on his hind legs," he said briefly. 
And that was true, as we soon discovered. 
The bear would drag the clog as long as it 
followed easily; but when it caught in a 
root, or when the pain in his pinched paw 
became too great, he would go back, pick 
up the clog, and go forward again, walking 
on his hind legs and carrying the drag in 
his arms. So we found him at last, limping 
bravely forward. He was walking upright, 
like a huge monkey, the trap on one paw, 
the heavy clog under his free arm, and 
the chain clanking against his breast as he 
walked, as if he were handcuffed. 

There is small glory for man in the inci- 
dent. My own sympathies were entirely with 
the bear, and our trapper's cunning seemed 
to us both a mean and detestable thing as I 




Walking on his hind legs and carrying 
the drag in his arms " 




tried unsuccessfully to free the splendid 
brute, and offered the old hunter twice the 
bounty if he could devise any way 
of removing the trap without at the ^J!^L^/\ nfk 
same time being brained or scalped 
by a blow from Mooween's free paw. I 
mention the fact simply to illustrate the sub- 
ject I am talking about more vividly than is 
possible by making general laws or theories 
for the wood folk, as is usually done. Nine 
bears out of ten simply drag their clog till 
it becomes hopelessly tangled in the under- 
brush; when, like a fox, they lie down and 
wait to be killed, as the hunter approaches, 
with nose down between their paws, as if 
fate were too much for them and they bow r ed 
their heads to what they cannot understand. 
But the tenth bear uses his wits, and so up- 
sets any theories we may have as to instinct 
and reflex impulses. 

From the bear to the chipmunk is a far 
cry; but the same puzzling factor of indi- 
viduality applies to both animals, and indeed 
to all those between them that make their 
home in the wilderness. Last summer one 

f C 



of the men whom I employed in the woods 
ioo . . 

t tried for weeks to make friends with a chip- 

t r- r w 1=7 ww munk that made himself very much 
WlICfTOlR . i k . ' , 

f)nf=> ft V/lnt* home about our camp. One day, 

fifr- — ^S"i ' when he told me of his efforts and 

failure, I assured him solemnly that he did 
not have the right medicine. I took an Eng- 
lish walnut from his hand — a broken nut, 
because when we gave this wilderness squir- 
rel a whole nut for the first time he did not 
know what to do with it — and sat down on 
the ground, mumbling a bit of Latin doggerel 
for medicine. As long as the guide stood 
near me the chipmunk kept at a distance ; 
but when the man withdrew and sat down 
quietly the little fellow came at once to my 
call, halting and jumping aside nervously, 
but eyeing me steadily all the while, till his 
nose touched the bait in my hand. I gave 
him one small taste and then drew the nut 
away, which was altogether too much for 
his timidity. Evidently in his eyes also the 
blessing brightened as it took flight, for he 
scampered nimbly after it till he sat fair on 
my knee, where he nipped and tugged and 



twisted his little head, trying in every wa) 

to pull the morsel from between my fingers 

To this day the guide thinks that I 



10: 



M/c/Fo/A 

One3yOne 



have some special power over wild 
animals; but it was simply a case of 
keeping physically and mentally quiet. He 
had been too eager, too excited, too im- 
patient ; and the chipmunk, like most wild 
animals, and like certain children who seem 
at times to understand your thought rather 
than your action, had felt the subtle excite- 
ment and was afraid. In a day or two he 
understood us better and would take food 
from anybody, even from little Lois when 
we could persuade her to sit quiet as a 
mouse for a moment. 

Chikchickooweesep, as Simmo calls him, 

was storing food for the winter, and at first (| 
. . % 

he carried everything away to his den, which 

was hidden in the big woods somewhere be- 
yond the farthest cabin. He would seize a 
nut from our fingers, dart under the nearest v. 
piazza, out like a brown streak across an g 
open spot, under the piazza of the next 
cabin, out again across a path and under 









a root, as if the owl were after him; then 
102 ' 

along the shadow of a mossy log, and so on 
j r.jr^j m=t /rr to his den, following always the same 
/lr>/z> F\ v/ln/2 * ra ^ anc ^ n ^ing himself cunningly 
~7$ff~s from the eyes of any enemies that 

might be watching. Several minutes would 
pass before we would see him again, peek- 
ing out with bright inquisitive eyes from 
beneath the nearest cabin to see if we were 
still in an idle mood and had anything 
good to offer him. 

Soon, however, these long trips began to 
bother the little husbandman. He was wast- 
ing too much time going and coming; and 
often when he returned his new friends had 
tired of waiting for him and had gone off on 
the trail of other wood folk in the great 
wilderness. Nor had they generously left 
where he could find them any of the nuts 
which he saw in their hands when he went 
away. So when food was shown him in 
abundance he began to hide it in numerous 
caches near at hand, so as to dispose quickly 
of all that was offered him. Sometimes I 
would put a dozen tidbits in the palm of my 




hand and watch with intense interest as he 

103 

sat upright on my fingers, his feet wonder- 
fully soft and light and his eyes 7//>/ ^ 77> . 
round as a rooster's as he saw the j^ n ~ nxrfln** 

rich abundance. He would stuff his 
cheek pouches full as they would hold ; then 
scamper off to the nearest cache and hide 
his morsels under a stone or root or mossy 
log. In a moment he w r ould be back again 
for more, which he hid promptly in a differ- 
ent place. For with the exception of his den, 
which he had chosen carefully, he seemed to 
have a great aversion to putting too many 
eggs in one basket, where Meeko the red 
squirrel might find and steal them. When 
the store in my hand was gone to the last 
crumb he would then dig up his scattered 
tidbits at his leisure and carry them off to 
his winter storehouse. 

This lasted three. or four days; then Chik- 
chickooweesep began to be troubled again. 
There seemed to be no limit to the generos- 
ity of his new friends, and he was still wast- 
ing too much time in transportation. Possi- 
bly also the security of the camp from hawks 



io4 



WilctroIK 



and owls and foxes appealed to him. So, like 
a certain rich man who had no room where 
to bestow his fruits and his goods, he 



resolved to build another storehouse. 




OneByOne 

(^---"7^\"\ He still came regularly to the camp 

^ door and hid all that we gave him ; but he 
employed all his spare time in transferring 
all his goods from the distant storehouse to 
the hollow roots of a tree that stood beside 
the open door of my little tent. There, close 
beside his chief source of supply, he made a 
new den, and from there he often came into 
my tent to wake me up in the early morn- 
ing; for he soon learned that I kept a little 
tin box of crackers and nuts and rice and 
raisins, which I would open to him for the 
asking. 

One day, partly to test his intelligence, and 
partly in pure idleness for the mischief of the 
thing, I tied half a nut to a string and gave 
it to Chikch'eesep, holding the other end of 
the string myself. Away he went with the 
prize in his teeth, whisking over the ground 
like a sunbeam, as chipmunks go, till the cord 
straightened out with a snap, giving him a 



terrible jolt and sending him flying over on 
his back in a complete somersault at the 
unexpected stop. In a wink he was 



105 



M/c/ro/A 

One3yOne 



$ 



up and off again, only to have the 
nut jerked out of his mouth a second 
time as he started in a headlong rush for qfe 
his den. This time he scolded like a fish- \S 
wife; but whether he were berating me or ! 
the unoffending nut, I could not tell. In the 
midst of his scolding he seized the morsel 
and backed away till the string drew taut, 
when he began to tug and pull and worry, 
running back and forth in half-circles at the 
end of his tether. Then he would stop and 
brace himself with hind feet well apart and 
shoulders flat to the ground and surge back- 
ward on his purchase, bringing all the mus- 
cles of his body into play at once, like a fox 
I once saw that caught a woodchuck by the 
tail just as the little creature dove into his 
burrow and tugged in vain to drag him out. 
After a minute or two of this vain effort 
Chikch'eesep dropped the nut and seemed 
to be studying his proposition; for he sat 
very still on his hind legs, looking at the 




«\m 



kh 





, obstinate thing, and his eyes were shining 

steadily. Suddenly he dropped on all fours, 

t r-w * *-* **■ came between me and the nut, cut 
WZ/CfjffDf/C ... . 

(Tint* Ftv/lnt* ^ e str ^ n § w ^ tn ms tee th> and hurried 
~^Y^ away with his booty. When he came 

1 back I had the other half of the nut tied to 
the same string. No fooling this time. With- 
out a moment's hesitation he cut the string, 
grabbed his prize, and away he went, whizz ! 
like a bumblebee that has got his bearings. 
One who has watched the wood folk with- 
out prejudice might multiply instances of this 
kind indefinitely. Indeed, as I think over the 
birds and animals of my acquaintance and 
see them again in the wilderness, hardly one 
passes, from the moose to the wood-mouse, 
and from the eagle of the unnamed cliffs to 
H Killooleet who sang on my ridge-pole, with- 
out bringing with him some vivid bit of per- 
sonal experience which sets that particular 
animal or bird apart from all the rest. Deer 
are plentiful about my wilderness camp, and 
I see scores of them in the course of a sum- 
mer and autumn; but one remembers not 
deer in general, but this particular buck 




that drove some smaller deer out of a sunny 
covert and lay down in it himself; and that 
particular young doe, which found her 



107 



first faw r n lying dead, and then went 
out through the woods seeking and 
calling him, with the puzzling thought in 
her poor head that her fawn was a living, 
answering, lovable reality, and not the cold, 
mute, silent thing she had just seen. And so 
with all other animals ; the more you know 
them the more individual do they become. 

The reason why we have so long held the 
opposite opinion, and put the animals down 
as, all alike, creatures of blind instinct and 
impulse, is a very simple one : we have noted 
the resemblances which unite animals of the 
same species, rather than the differences 
which separate them. Now resemblances lie 
on the surface and are easily seen ; while dif- 
ferences lie deep and are comparatively hard 
to discover. I know two men who, with a 
shave and hair-cut and dress suit apiece, would 
be indistinguishable across a drawing-room. 
On Sunday you would bow to one, thinking 
he was the other; and relying solely upon 



WI/dFoIK 

One3yOne 




£ chance meetings and personal observation 

(as we do with wild animals), it would take 

you a year to discover that one is a 

yv/iU/O/ri. W aiter, a kindly, honest man who is 

&Mffi^Uft& good to his family, and the other an 

^ accomplished musician who lives chiefly on 

^f I his emotions and is a moral scoundrel, with 

iyT^ a deserted wife and child somewhere in his 

hinterland. 

Sit in the box of a theater and look out 
over the audience only a few yards away; 
the men all look alike and act alike. For the 
moment they are alike. Sit at your window 
and watch the unconscious Sunday strollers at 
a little distance ; again the impression of gen- 
eral sameness in dress, walk, looks, actions, as 
if they were, all alike, clothed by nature and 
blown along by the south wind ; yet these 
men and women represent all the varieties of 
human character and individuality. Only as 
we come close to them, live with them, know 
them intimately, do they show the individual 
characteristics which separate them from all 
other men and women. That men are all 
alike is a true but superficial observation. 




Now apply that to the wood folk. We see 

. io 9 

the wild creatures almost invariably at a 

greater distance, and at less leisure, rv , ^ 
than we see the theater audience or Ai^p^r/^ 
the Sunday crowd, and we know far ^G^ 

less of their motives and springs of action. 
They look in a general way alike, and act 
alike; and so we have jumped to the super- 
ficial conclusion that they are alike. That 
means simply that we have seen the surface 
of things, the passing crowd at a distance. 
Now go close to the animals, watch them, 
follow them, win their confidence if possible, 
and instantly they begin to separate them- 
selves by little individual tricks and traits. 
This is the secret of the stories of dogs and 
pets that are multiplying so rapidly, and of 
the records of the few pioneers who have had 
the patience and sympathy to go among the 
wild birds and animals, to live with them 
and watch them and find out how, in their 
dumb way, they live and think and feel. We 
are simply discovering the individual differ- 
ences which separate an animal from his 
kind, which have always existed, but which 




we did not see simply because we were too 
no r J 

far away, and were perhaps blinded also by 

t r-T^j r=7 7r our barbaric desire to kill, and espe- 
g\ j( *( cially by our prejudices and our pre- 
""45T* conceived notion that wild animals 

of the same kind are all alike. 

The biologist has been busy with his mi- 
croscope, the psychologist with his experi- 
mentation, the ornithologist with his gun 
and egg-case and cabinet of dried skins, the 
writer of natural history with his easy-chair 
generalizations, the hunter with his dogs and 
sport. Meanwhile the lives of the wild birds 
and animals seem to me to be less understood 
when the Indians were their 
■preters. 

£2 




CTMI 






HE ducks were quacking con- 
tentedly enough, in the pond 
at the foot of the lane, when 
the vagabond first came among 
them. 

They were a motley collection, all sorts 
and conditions of ducks ; for the farmer 
who owned them had a fondness for variety. 
Moreover, he was a hunter, especially fond 
of shooting the wild ducks in the little ponds 
and the river-mouth and on the open sea, 
close at hand. This latter taste gave oppor- 
tunity to the former, for whenever he wing- 
tipped a wild duck and his dog brought in 
the bird uninjured, he would take him home 
and tame him and then turn him loose with 
his motley flock. And, curiously enough, the 

"3 



influence of the domestic birds, with their 
settled habits and their content with good 
^- b i r food and comfortable quarters, gen- 
-%v ^ erally finished the taming process. 

V Cm^OLJiJm 1U Also in the springtime our farmer 
used to hunt the creeks and lonely ponds 
where the wild fowl nested, and whenever 
he found their eggs he would bring them 
home and hatch them under a tame duck. 
So that you often saw a group of pure wild 
birds, which would have been perfectly at 
home among the wild-rice beds of the Ches- 
apeake or in the unnamed flashets of the 
lonely Labrador, follow contentedly at the 
heels of a bird that had never known any 
other home than a duck-coop, or any other 
liberty than to waddle down the lane to the 
horse-pond and to think, perhaps, how big 
the world was. Then the vagabond came 
and upset all their steady habits. 

He was a fine big drake, a dusky mallard, 
that darted over the pond one day at sunset, 
when the ducks were preening themselves 
and gabbling contentedly. Where he came 
from nobody knew; but the rush of his 




Set his wings and slanted down among 
his tame kindred " 



c 




powerful wings and the look of utter wildness 
in his bright eyes spoke of vast distances and 
the peace of the far Northland, where (-TTfas^ 
he had been born and bred in the ^j- *^ 
silent places. As is always the case ^Cj^CILJUIJ^I 
with tame ducks, the wish, wish, wish of the 
wild wings seemed to rouse some strong, un- 
known desire that slumbers lightly under 
the tame habits of the water-fowl. A score 
of birds threw themselves into the water, 
calling lustily and lifting their wings. Hark, 
ark, ark, ark ! clamored the hen ducks in a 
mighty chorus, and Hoke, oke, oke, oke ! came 
back the drake's husky answer. He circled 
many times over the excited flock ; whirled 
once completely around the shores to see 
that no enemy was there ; then set his wings 
and slanted down among his tame kindred. 
And the farmer, watching from his dooryard, 
knew that an unexpected and very welcome 
addition had come to his motley flock. 

For three or four days the vagabond stayed 
with the tame ducks, paying no attention 
to the cattle that came to drink, but rising 
with a swift rush, as if flung up by powerful 



£ springs, whenever a man appeared on the 
scene. Sometimes he headed for the river; 
^ry. sometimes for the open sea ; but gen- 
^%, - erally he circled widely, high in air, 

*&&*■*■*-'"***-*' watching keenly until the man went 
away, when with immense caution he would 
rejoin his new companions. At the very out- 
set he assumed a kind of leadership over 
part of the big flock, and it was noticeable 
that the wildest birds, those in whom the 
native strain was purest, followed him most 
willingly. The older birds, and those most 
influenced by domestic breeding, would fol- 
low their own ways, and at night would 
waddle up the lane to sleep in their accus- 
tomed place. But the younger birds, and 
especially those hatched from the wild eggs, 
preferred to follow the vagabond. They 
would cluster about him, always at the 
farthest and loneliest nooks in the pond ; 
would stretch their wings and cry after him 
when he flew away ; would rush to meet and 
greet him when he came back; and at night 
would stay with him in the pond instead of 
going home to the duck-coop. 



One night the farmer noticed him in the 
pond with a large flock of the tame birds 
around him, and they were all playing ^7-7^^^ 
intently together, darting about in cir- -_ _ 
cles, threshing their wings powerfully, *€*&* 
skittering across the whole width of the pond, 
gabbling and quacking in nameless excite- 
ment. It was precisely like the wild flocks 
that one sometimes sees gather in the early 
autumn in the far North, — a dozen different 
families getting acquainted and apparently 
working themselves into some sort of shape 
for the long journey together. Next morning 
at sunrise the vagabond was gone, and the 
whole flock with him. Of the forty or more 
birds that were playing together at twilight, 
not a solitary duck remained to tell of the in- 
fluence and advantage of man's protection. 

A few of the birds were afterwards found 
in the river, making a sad attempt at getting 
their own living. A few more appeared, 
foot-sore and weary, in the yard of a farmer a 
mile away, and were shut up with the chick- 
ens. Still others were captured or shot ten 
miles down the coast. The rest never came 




120 




cVaga. 



back, nor does any man know what became 

of them. Occasionally, on the Maine coast, 

f~ » ■ r I have seen a wild duck showing, by 

w his superior size or shape or colora- 

""" tion, a strain of domestic breeding. 

So some of the wanderers, let us trust, are 

still following the vagabond's trail to the 

silent places. 






WAS drifting along the dusky 
shore in my canoe, one evening, 
at that exquisite twilight hour 
when nature and the heart of 
man seem all compounded of peace. In front 
of me stretched the wilderness lake, still as / 
a mirror and steeped in the soft afterglow 
that illumined all the sky. Under me glided 
the little canoe of bark and roots and cedar, 
the work of my Indian's hands, part and 
parcel of the silent wilderness. The paddle 
was never raised but kept turning noiselessly 
under water, sending the light, beautiful craft 
smoothly along without a sound, without a 

123 




124 



Wh 





ripple. Far behind me in camp I could 
faintly hear Simmo at work mending our 
p tin baker, — tink, tink, tink ! He was 
two miles away, but the sound carried 
over the perfect silence, and in imag- 
ination I saw him bending over his work, 
silent, absorbed, intent, like the muskrat 
yonder, opening his supper of fresh-water 
clams without breaking the fragile shells. 
Tink, tink, tink ! The sound was like the 
last chirp of a sleepy bird, and none of the 
shy, timid wood folk seemed to pay any 
attention to it. 

On my right rose the wild tangle of the 
burned lands, green and shadowy, hiding 
their abundant life. On every rampike and 
on every dead branch the thrushes were sing- 
ing wondrously sweet, and in every dusky 
covert Killooleet, the white-throated sparrow, 
whom I love more than all other birds, called 
out to me cheerily, Good-night, friend fisher- 
man, fisherman, fisherman ! as I drifted past. 
Other lives, and larger, were here too. Rab- 
bits and grouse swarmed in the dense thick- 
ets ; and where they are you may be sure 



of finding the birds and beasts of prey, which 
follow them like shadows. Up on the top of 
the ridge a lynx had her den and her ciprj^p. 
kittens, and I had been watching them 
that morning before sunrise. Some- 
where in the shadows lurked a big bull cari- 
bou that came out on the open shore in the 
morning and the evening twilights, and, 
though it was not a wolf country, there 
was at least one big gray timber-wolf which 
Simmo and I had seen plainly on the shore 
one night when a buck broke out of the 
cover and came leaping along the water's 
edge, so frightened and heedless that he 
passed between my tent and my canoe with- 
out swerving for either in his wild rush. It 
was largely in the hope of meeting some of 
these shy prowlers that I had come out alone 
in the still twilight hour, when the animals 
are least afraid and when a man's heart loses 
all desire to harm any living creature. 

As I drifted silently along a faint rustle of 
leaves caught my ear, and I stopped instantly 
to become part of the light canoe. There 
was no breeze stirring and such a sound, 



125 





, however faint, could come only from the 
126 . J 

passing of life through the coverts. There 

jv -ffop, p it was again ! Not a sound this time 

but a movement of the leaves, and just 



Jif 7 ^ in front of me a big red fox glided out 
of the underbrush upon the open shore. 

1 had pursed my lips to squeak like a 
mouse, and so to bring him nearer, when he 
stopped and turned his head back to the 
woods, standing with one forefoot raised, 
listening intently. Something was evidently 
following him, and I forbore to squeak in 
order to find out what it was, hoping in my 
heart for another glimpse of my big wolf, 
who has more cunning than any fox and 
who hunts and kills and eats Eleemos when- 
ever he crosses the wolf's trail. 

A full moment Eleemos stood listening, 
wrinkling his nose back at the woods in 
order to catch any message from the trail. 
Then he turned and trotted swiftly up the 
shore, keeping close to the water's edge. 

I had started to follow him when he turned 
to listen, and thinking that he might pos- 
sibly have heard the ripple under the bow of 




Standing with one forefoot raised, 
listening intently " 





my canoe, I ceased all motion and sat watch- 

J 129 

ing him. But he had not heard me. His 

whole attention seemed concentrated cii/fo^f* pfor* P 

upon the woods and upon his own cgjk&%&$^ 
back trail, and after a moment he ^^^ 
trotted on again. For a space of forty or 
fifty yards he kept straight on. Then he 
turned and came back with immense caution, 
apparently stepping in his own tracks, and 
stopping often to sniff and listen. 

Half-way back to where he had emerged 
from the woods Eleemos stopped for the last 
time, nose, ears, and eyes questioning the 
silent hillside. Like a flash he crouched and 
leaped sidewise, landing in the shallow water. 
There he trotted swiftly along towards me, 
in the opposite direction to that which he 
had first taken, lifting his pads smoothly, 
making no splash or commotion, but show- 
ing plainly enough by his action how a fox 
hates to wet his dainty feet, — probably be- 
cause he knows that when wet they leave 
more scent behind them. So he passed 
swiftly between me and the shore, keeping 
to the shallow water till he disappeared 



i3° 



147) 




around the nearest point, leaving the lake all 
hushed and motionless as before. 
jfop /> I whirled the canoe and followed 
silently ; but when I reached the point 
he had vanished, going back, prob- 
ably, to the same woods whence he had 
come. I returned to the spot where I had 
first seen him and watched there expect- 
antly, hour after hour, till long after dark- 
ness had fallen and shadow and substance 
were merged along the shore. Once the 
leaves rustled stealthily, and once Killooleet, 
disturbed in his sleep, trilled out his good- 
night song. That was all I saw or heard as 
I drifted homeward through the vast silence 
of the wilderness night to where Simmo's 
camp-fire flashed out of the dark woods its 
cheery invitation. 





T 3 ] 





O understand a wild goose 
two things are necessary, 
luck and a good disposition; 
luck to find him at home, 
and a disposition to lay aside 
your gun and your prejudices 
and to see with an open mind. If happily 
these two pleasant things have ever fallen 
to your lot, you no longer call a person a 
goose unless you mean to pay him a com- 
pliment, and you no longer speak of a wild- 
goose chase as the symbol of a useless and 
hopeless quest ; for among all the birds there 
*33 



*34 



^Wild Goose 




is none that so readily responds to your 
advances, and none that so abundantly re- 
pays you for your time and trouble. 
, Indeed, for the man who has followed 
^ Waptonk only with a gun to kill him, 

or only with his longing eyes as the high- 
flying wedge harrows the blue heavens and 
the wild trumpet clangor comes crackling 
down in the spring twilight, there are chiefly 
surprises in store when he gets really ac- 
quainted with this wild wanderer. 

It was largely this element of surprise that 
led me, when luck came to me on the deso- 
late barrens of the far North, to forsake the 
salmon rivers which I had come to fish, and 
the caribou which I had come to understand, 
and to hide and watch by the lonely little 
ponds, or flashets, where Waptonk and his 
mate were training their fuzzy little ones. 

I have written elsewhere of my first meet- 
ing with Waptonk, the big gander, in the in- 
terior of Newfoundland ; of his apparent lack 
of fear, so different from what I expected; 
of his brave defense of his mate, and of 
his marvelous care and sagacity in watching 



W/li 
Ways 



over the young goslings. To understand him 
better I began at the beginning, that is, with 
the young birds as soon as possible 
after they had chipped the shell. 

Here again my first impression was 
one of singular tameness and fearlessness on 
the part of the young geese, which, a few 
months later when they first cross the do- 
mains of men, our hunters find wild and 
wary beyond measure. That this latter wari- 
ness is due directly to the old birds, which 
have learned the danger and which lead the 
young on their first southern migration, is 
beyond a question. Here on the lonely bar- 
rens, where the foot of man almost never 
rests, they swim about the sedgy flashlets, or 
wander wide for grass and berries, or prac- 
tice their funny little cackling choruses with 
marvelous freedom and carelessness, as 
there were not such a thing as an enemy 
in the world. On my 
p roach they would 
look at me with bright 
curious eyes ; then, at 
a low signal from _ . 

JwvA 



135 






the mother bird, they would go quickly 
ashore and hide, while Waptonk would cir- 
cle about on patrol, or station him- 



oose 

Ways 



self squarely across my path if I 
approached too near. And when, 
upon rare occasions, for I admired them too 
much to trouble them, I disregarded the old 
birds and brushed them aside and went to 
the little ones, they suffered me to pick them 
up without resistance, seeming to like their 
petting, and would share readily the lunch 
of black bread which I offered them. 

Many years ago I came to the conclusion, 
from watching young cubs and nestlings, 
that there is very little real fear born in a 
wild animal. Instead of being instinctive, 
fear seems to be largely the result of imme- 
diate prenatal influences, and of the mother's 
example and influence as she hovers about 
her little ones. She knows the danger, and 
they do not; and it is largely from her 
alarms that they learn what fear is. Watch- 
ing these young geese, so friendly and unsus- 
picious on their own lonely heath, so wild 
and marvelously intelligent in avoiding all 



human devices on their southern migrations, 
one could hardly escape the opinion that 
fear is not among the things that are TA r-j 
hatched out of an egg. And this is , ■ - 
an opinion which, I understand, Pro- ^ K 
fessor Hodge is also slowly forming as the 
result of his experience in raising ruffed 
grouse for the first time in captivity. 

My friend, Dr. Morris, who has camped 
and fished much in Labrador, writes me that 
his own experience corresponds to my own 
in regard to Waptonk's natural fearlessness 
and even friendliness to man. " Often," he 
writes, " I have canoed all day where I 
would have wild geese almost constantly 
under observation. I have often taken the 
goslings into my canoe for company in the 
morning, and at night have taken them back 
to the mother flock. They 
grow tame immediately, and 
take food from one's hand at 
the end of a few hours. I 
used to kill them to eat, 
for they are delicious ; but 
after I found that they 



137 






trusted me and would eat from my hand, I 

could not kill another one, nor allow my 

^^.^^ Indians to do it." 

OOS6 

\A/ J=iX/ c I n the little fishing village of Howe 

^ Harbor, on the east coast, I used to 
watch a flock of six wild goslings that had 
just been caught in a neighboring pond. 
The day after they arrived they were run- 
ning free about the yard, disregarding men 
and the wolfish huskie dogs alike, and 
would feed eagerly from the children's 
hands. Whatever fear of man they possess, 
therefore, seems to develop late, and seems 
to be the direct result of the parents' teach- 
ing or influence during the migration, rather 
than of any inherited instinct. 

As for their fear of other animals, I was 
unable from my own observation to form a 
positive opinion. In the lonely country 
where I first discovered Waptonk there were 
some wolves and bears; lynxes were numer- 
ous, and foxes of three or four varieties were 
more plentiful than I have ever found them 
elsewhere. But Mooween the bear would 
never trust himself on the soft, dangerous 



footing about the ponds where Waptonk is 
at home ; the lynx hates the water that lies 



39 



W/A 
Way. 



just beneath the moss everywhere, 
and finds plenty of hares and rabbits 
in his own haunts under the hills. 
Even the fox would be at a disadvantage in 
the moist, clinging sphagnum into which 
your foot sinks almost to the knee as you 
walk; and aside from this disadvantage, I 
doubt if any fox could make any headway 
against an enraged wild gander, who can 
deal hard blows with his powerful wings, 
and who fights with a magnificent courage 
that fills you with admiration. Unlike the 
ducks, the male geese watch constantly over 
their mates and little ones ; and it would be 
a lucky fox and a valiant one that, except 
by rare accident, would ever have a chance 
to steal a gosling and get away with him 
safely over the treacherous foot 
ing. The wolves, i 



immense fellows 
that turn white in 
winter, are back 
on the hills in the 



^m 






140 



<r W/lc/ 




timber, where they feed chiefly on small 
game and occasionally on the numerous 
^^.^^ caribou. So it would seem that, even 
\Afa\r<s amon & wn< d animals, the life of the 
young goose is singularly free from 
the fear which we have attributed to the birds 
while watching their winter life, when the 
hand of every man and boy is against them. 
The conduct of the goslings when dis- 
turbed tells the same wholesome story. On 
the first warning from the old birds they go 
quietly ashore and hide, trusting to the wet 
moss and the bottomless mud about their 
hiding-place to shield them from any large 
enemy, and confident in their parents' cour- 
age and strength to save them from lesser 
prowlers. Even after they can fly well the 
young birds seldom take to water, except it 
be the open ocean or a great lake, but will 
light in the nearest grass or underbrush and 
hide instantly. Watching the young birds' 
flight, you may go straight to the spot where 
they alight and there find them, if your eyes 
are keen enough ; for they are hard to find 
even when under your very feet. They hide 



4i 



with all the cunning of a black duck, and 
generally the only way to detect them is by 
their eyes, shining steadily like jewels rir-w 
among the roots and grasses. And j^a^c^s 
when you uncover them at last they 
lose all fear, like certain very young fawns, -A * 
in a bright curiosity to know all about the 
strange animal that has come gently to pet 
and feed them. 

The rarest experience of all was to crawl 
near and watch the flock when they w r ere 
entirely unconscious of your presence. In 
the morning you would see them start out 
across the barrens to feed, and would notice 
the beginning of that wedge formation with 
which they make all their long migrations. 
The mother would walk at the head, and 
strung out on either side of her, like a broad 
arrow-head, would come the young birds, 
walking straight ahead in parallel courses, 
and with a space of a couple of feet on either 
side of each gosling as his own foraging- WM 




grounds. So 



> ;->-.; .v . ^ZX^T 1 ^^^'^^^^^^ 







^0M 7'-'' : % W 



142 



nVi/d Qoose 
Ways 




they would cover a broad strip of the bar- 
rens, moving forward in a straight line and 
finding every tender bit of grass and 



every cluster of berries in their course. 
But whenever the mother or one of the 
goslings came upon tender grass, or berries 
in abundance, or a bed of the delicious bake- 
apples, the whole wedge would waver and 
break, and all you would see would be a hop- 
ping, hurrying mass of fuzzy bodies, cheeping, 
whistling, scurrying about lest they should 
miss the best morsels, and konk-konking their 
satisfaction as they gobbled down the rich 
abundance. Then the wedge would slowly 
form again, and they would start off in eager 
search of another find. 

It was very noticeable that, in leaving the 
little pond and crossing ground that had 
already been gleaned, or wherever there was 
any alarm or any treacherous ground to be 
crossed, the goslings made no attempt at 
wedge formation, but clustered together and 
followed carefully the steps of the mother 
bird, or else stood perfectly still until she 
called them on. The wedge seemed to be 



used to cover thoroughly a new piece of 
ground, where each might have his own ter- 
ritory, and where every young bird r^/y^/ ^ 
could have plain sight of the leader ri^^^f 
as they moved onward. Possibly, also, *^ A 
there was a definite training here for the 
wedge flight, to which all geese must sooner 
or later be accustomed. 

Wherever the geese went, whether quest- 
ing for berries, or preening their feathers, or 
gathering with a multitude of their fellows 
on the open ocean, they were forever gab- 
bling. Only the immediate presence of dan- 
ger kept them for a moment silent ; and I 
found myself often wondering whether the 
astonishing gamut of goose sounds has any 
fixed and definite meaning. It is not that cer- 
tain calls express certain ideas, — beyond a 
few elemental emotions of food, danger, rage, 
affection, and the -inarticulate cries which 
express them, I have not found that kind of 
speech among the wood folk, — but rather 
that the tone itself expresses everything by 
its changing quality. That geese talk to each 
other in this way is beyond question. 



144 



nv/Id Goose 




Aside from this question of communication, 
the voice of the wild goose, ranging from 
the sleepy twilight cheepings of affec- 
- tion for his little ones to the brazen 

„ •s roar, like the clang of a war gong, 
with which he voices his defiance on land 
and shouts aloud to the spring from the 
high heavens, is perhaps the most marvel- 
ous in all nature. Though the voice have 
no musical quality, yet for barbaric martial 
clangor it has no equal ; and if Rome were, 
indeed, saved by its geese, sleeping on the 
wall and naturally detecting the approach of 
danger, I can fancy that every Roman soldier, 
when he heard the wild midnight alarm, 
jumped for his weapons as if a bugle had 
called him. Here on the lonely barren I 
could at times hardly locate the gentle 
sounds, though half a dozen geese were gab- 
bling within twenty yards of my hiding; 
while in the spring the same flock, passing 
overhead at an enormous altitude, would 
rouse every lagging goose and stir the heart 
of every man within five miles of its thrill- 
ing jubilate. 



How Nature can put so much power into 
so small a compass is one of the mysteries. 
Nothing of man's invention, and per- ta///^j f^^tnQ 
haps nothing else in the throat of an i^^^S 
animal, can begin to equal the carry- ^ 
ing and penetrating power of the wild-goose ^ 
honk. I have often tried to estimate the dis- 
tance at which it can be plainly heard ; but 
all such estimates are largely guesswork. 
Once, when I heard a flock of geese on the 
open ocean, their distance, as estimated by 
a shoal and buoy, was a full three miles. 
Another time I had a chance to compare 
them with a bull moose, whose voice is a 
grunting roar that startles the woods like 
a gunshot. I was calling from a lake one 
night, when a bull moose answered very 
faintly from the mountain behind me. It 
was a perfectly still night, with moist air 
in which sounds carry perfectly, and as I 
called I could trace the huge brute's course 
as he came down the mountain, the roars 
growing heavier and heavier till with a ter- 
rific crash he broke out on the open shore. 
From three to five miles was the estimated 




, distance at which I first heard him, though 
he had probably come from farther away, his 
keen ears having heard the rolling 



^Wi/d Qoose 
Ways 



-^t=v ^ 



bellow of my birch-bark trumpet. A 
few days later a flock of wild geese 
passed over the same lake, flying very high 
on their southern migration ; and I heard 
plainly the leader's deep honk and the flock's 
cackling answer after they had passed over 
and beyond the same mountain, at a dis- 
tance much greater than that from which I 
had first heard the big bull's answer. 

When the young birds were well grown 

they deserted the little flashets and the 

: lonely marshes where they were born, 

.^ ; : and the parents led them to the shallow 

^\-. \ '■.:■: :■;. f / / •' bays and inlets of the ocean, 

^\V^lHt}/ < nV /■////. where the scattered families 

-> ; i gradually united into immense flocks. The 

• \\ family ties were still strong and would re- 

^ main unbroken through the winter, each 

' ' : pair of old geese leading and guiding its 

v .; own family group in all its flights and feed- 




^Mp^/-"^',;^ 




ing. 



In the morning 



the great flock would 






W^Mvfi /'■'■■„, -.■<?■■■ 

|( ' \ ' ] < '; J. 

I 




IIIPl'l' 1 ' 



scatter widely, the families going away sepa 
rately, some to explore the shallows of Pisto 
let Bay, others flying overland to the 14/y/j 
ponds and barrens where they were jA/fo\r 
bred; but in the afternoon the scat- 
tered flocks would return and reunite, play- 
ing and honking together in obedience to 
their social instinct, which is very strong 
among the geese, as among the caribou of 
the same great barrens. Watching them thus 
together, day after day, it occurred to me 
suddenly that this social impulse or instinct 
would account for their migration and for 
many other things which we have attributed 
to other causes. 

It must be remembered that, of these great 
flocks, at least four fifths of the birds were 
younglings which had never been away from 
the little ponds where they were born, and 
which knew nothing whatever of the world 
or of the great southern flight that awaited 
them ; while the other fifth were wise old 
birds that had made the journey, some once, 
some ten or twenty times. These old birds, 
therefore, might reasonably be expected to 



147 





oose 

Ways 



have some thought for the change that must 
speedily take place in the life of the goslings 
over which they had watched so care- 
fully; and it was but another small 
step to see in their methods of play 
and flight a direct preparation for what was 
to follow. The casual observer, stumbling 
upon one of these great flocks and seeing 
them straggle off in alarm, and then never 
seeing them again nor thinking about them, 
might thoughtlessly attribute everything in 
their movement to blind chance and instinct ; 
but one who had watched over them for 
weeks, and who remembered the marvelous 
intelligence and teachableness for which the 
wild goose is noted, was forced to see in all 
their movements the glimmerings, at least, 
of an intelligent purpose, the extent of which 
was probably even greater than he supposed. 
First, in the matter of their play, I would 
lie for hours behind a screen of evergreen, 
watching a great flock through my glasses 
and noting every movement. At first the 
families would hold apart, like young cari- 
bou which are brought for the first time out 



149 



of the woodsy solitude where they are born 
to the open barrens where hundreds of their 
kind are congregating. Gradually they Urf/MjgQQi 
would mingle, raising their wings in ri^^^i 
the sea-fowls' salutation, honking and ** 
playing together, till a score of families had 
united in a single loose flock. If at the outer 
edges a sharp ha-unk ! of alarm was raised, 
only the nearest geese, and sometimes appar- 
ently only the family of the watchman, would 
pay attention to it. If the alarm were genu- 
ine, the flock scattered raggedly, the families 
rising at different times and each pair of 
parent birds leading away their own gos- 
lings. Gradually all that was changed ; the 
first alarm-note was heeded by every goose, 
no matter who uttered it ; the flight became 
regular, till at the end of the season the flock 
would rise almost as one bird and follow the 
same leader down the bay, instead of 
scattering in different directions as 
they had formerly done. 
When I studied the 
flight and migration of 
these great birds twenty 




J5° 



<r W//d 




problems arose, some of which allowed a 

fairly reasonable guess, but most of which 

_^^ are still unanswered. First, how do 
OOSG . 

ji/^ the individual geese hold their course 

^ in that wedge formation for which 
the Canada goose is famous, though some 
of his cousins, like the brant, seem to know 
nothing about it ? Does each goose fly 
straight ahead, in a course more or less to 
one side and behind but always parallel to 
the leader; or do the wings of the wedge 
converge continually towards the moving 
head so that every goose, except the one at 
the point of the wedge, flies in a continuous 
curve towards his leader and so towards his 
objective point? The question seems a sim- 
ple one, yet it is astonishingly difficult of 
certain solution, and a good many things in 
Waptonk's life depend on the answer. 

It is often held by hunters that the leader 
goes ahead not only to show the way but 
also to " break the air " in the flock's passage. 
Their evidence seems to show that the leader 
often gets weary of the swift rush of the wind 
against him and another bird takes his place 




at the head of the wedge, while the youngest 
or weakest birds fall to the rear of the wings, 
where the resistance of the air is least j A r- w .^j x>_ 

and where flying is therefore easiest, r* t 
And some instances are recorded in 
the books of flocks of wild geese halting in 
air to change leaders and then moving on 
again ; though it must be said fairly that such 
incidents are not recorded as the results of 
personal observation, but seem to be all 
copied from some common and unknown 
source. If these be true, however, they indi- 
cate the answer to our question. The birds 
must all fly at their leader, not straight ahead 
in parallel courses ; otherwise it would be no 
easier at the end of the wings than at the 
head of the wedge. Indeed it would prob- 
ably be harder, for aside from the resistance 
of the wind, it is less tiring to go at the 
head than -^ ^g^ ^^^ 
at the tail or a procession. ^^~~ 

Personally, after much watching with this 
question in mind while the old birds were 
training their young to the wedge flight, and 
again in the fields when they passed over 



152 



^W/Id Qoose 
Ways 




my head, I can give no sure answer to the 
question; but I have this strong impression, 
that the individual geese in the 



wedge all fly straight ahead in paral- 
lel courses, instead of flying at the 
goose immediately in front ; and so the ques- 
tion of breaking the way has nothing whatever 
to do with their flight or relative position. 

Aside from this personal impression in 
watching them, certain other things point 
to the same conclusion. First, the leader of 
the wedge is always an old bird that has 
made the migration before and has learned 
the way from his elders. A young goose 
would never be found at the head of the 
wedge, simply because he would be hope- 
lessly lost and know not which way to go. 
Geese shape their course by mountains and 
headlands, not by instinct, flying always in 
a straight course over land and water, and 
flying very high so as always to keep a vast 
stretch of country under their eyes and so 
hold their course with absolute precision. 
Curiously enough their cousins, the 
brant, here in the east at 




least, have never learned this trick. They 
never venture far overland, but always fly low 
over the water and follow all the wind- j A r» F ^» *> 
ings of the coast in journeying south V/L ^^ 
or north. So they often fly twice as •? 
far as Waptonk in going to the same place. 

So long as the weather is clear, Waptonk 
knows precisely where to go, for there before 
him are the same headlands that he noticed 
on his last journey. His memory for places, 
like that of most wild creatures, and like 
the astonishing memory of mules, is marvel- 
ous beyond our power to comprehend. If 
the weather be foggy so that he cannot see 
far, or if in journeying at night the bright 
lights of a town dazzle his eyes, Waptonk is 
instantly thrown off his balance. The wedge 
breaks its perfect lines and crowds into a 
confused mass, honking its wild uncertainty. 
And there they stay, circling aimlessly, till 
the old leader catches sight of some familiar 
landmark and straightens out his course, or 
else leads the flock to the nearest water and 
halts them there till he can see just where 
he is going. 



154 



nvi/d 




If direction were a matter of instinct with 

the goose, he could, of course, journey just 

as well in foggy as in clear weather. 

j.* As a matter of fact, instinct has very 

r •? little to do with his finding his way 

south or north. That is almost entirely a 

matter of training and remembrance. 

All this apparent digression bears directly 
upon the problem we were trying to solve. 
It must be granted, I think, that the young 
birds are being led southward by an un- 
known way, and that one of the objects is 
to show the course, so that the young will 
remember it and be themselves able to fol- 
low it another season. Certainly the results 
seem to justify this supposition. Now if the 
geese flew one behind the other in the wedge, 
only two of them could see the leader, and 
the landscape of each of the others would 
be confined to the tail of the goose immedi- 
ately in front of him and to whatever he 
might see by bending his head downward. 
But it is the landscape in front, with its 
strongly marked headlands, which is impor- 
tant; and judging by his flight to decoys, a 



goose sees very little of what is under his 
wings. By flying in wedge formation and 
in parallel courses, every goose in the , _._ 
flock can see his leader perfectly and *| - 
at the same time see all the landscape <s K 
in front, by which the leader is shaping his 
course. And the continuous gabble of the 
migrating flock, the leader's honk, and the 
young birds' quick answer, give the impres- 
sion that he is calling attention to certain 
things and that they are following his direc- 
tions consciously and perfectly. 

As for weariness and changing of places, 
the weakest birds will naturally lag behind ; 
but as the flock is either a single family or 
two or three united (and probably related) 
families under a single leader, it is more 
than probable that the young birds, which 
have never before made a long flight, will 
grow weary long before the magnificent old 
gander that tips the arrow-point, and it is 
for the young birds invariably that stops are 
made by the way. The rush of air must be 
tremendous in their high, swift flight; but 
the body of each goose is itself a fine wedge 



155 





to split the air perfectly, and there is prob- 
ably very little difference in air resistance 
whether one goes at the head or at 



oose 

Ways 



the tail of the procession. 



As all the geese fly at the same 
level, it would seem inevitable that a strong 
back current of air should be created on 
either side of the onrushing wedge, and this 
swift current seems to have the effect of 
tiring one wing more than the other; since 
every goose on one leg of the wedge would 
feel the current chiefly on his right wing, 
while those on the other side would feel it 
as strongly on the left. If you watch a flock 
high in air for a moment, you notice first 
that the flight is altogether different from 
that of the same birds when moving from 
one feeding-ground to another. In the latter 
case, especially when geese fly low over the 
water, the flight consists of a heavy flapping 
of the whole wing, almost as slow and heavy 
as that of the crow or heron; 
but when they are high 
in air, rushing 
along at ninety 




miles an hour, every wing is straight out 
from the body, and only the tip seems to 
quiver rapidly. Moreover, rapid as is f -._ 
this motion, all the tips seem to y^i 
quiver in unison, as if keeping time *^ K 
to some mighty harmony. Now, if you watch 
sharply, you will see a goose slip from his 
place on the right side of the wedge, whisk 
under the flock, and take his place on the 
left. Presently another and another follow 
him, till one leg of the wedge is much longer 
than the other. Then from the left other 
geese slip over to the right, till the wedge 
is perfect again. And I know of no expla- 
nation for these swift changes in the orderly 
flock, unless it be that the young geese seek 
to take the swift back current of air first on 
one wing, then on the other. 

As for changing of leaders on the way, 
that is puzzling, if true. Personally, I have 
never seen it, though I have watched wild 
geese at rest and in flight for long hours 
at a stretch ; and though I have followed 
hundreds of flocks with my eyes till they 
vanished in the blue, I have never seen any 



157 





£ change of front, though young birds often 
waver in the line and tired or wounded ones 
(TlA/'r^/ r* ^ s l° w ly to the rear. If the leader 

^ly? Se of a flock is killed at the head of his 
^ wedge, the geese will often circle in 
confusion till a new leader is chosen, or takes 
the place by his own strong impulse ; but 
otherwise I have not seen any variation, nor 
do I know of an authentic instance when 
wild geese changed their leaders while in 
undisturbed flight. It may be true, however, 
for all that, and it remains for one who has 
seen it to suggest an explanation of the habit. 
One thing seems certain about the wedge 
flight: it does not come easily to the eager 
young birds, and the parents train them 
diligently till it is perfected. Probably there 
is some hereditary impulse in this direction, 
which showed itself in the same formation 
when they were feeding on the lonely barren ; 
but the impulse, apart from the old birds' 
training, would amount to very little, as you 
can see by watching your domestic geese. 
When the goslings began to use their wings 
over the barrens and flashets they flew at 



first singly, then in confused groups, and 
last of all in wedge formation. While one 
of the old birds led the way the other ^ /7< 
would circle over the flock or fly close » . - -. 
beside it, apparently honking encour- ^ ||J 
agement. Weeks later, on the sea, the flight 
was not perfected, though practiced con- 
stantly; and one often sees a late-hatched 
flock making its belated way southward, in 
which the lines of the wedge waver con- 
stantly, as if the young birds were not yet 
drilled to the perfect flight. 

In the flight of the old birds there were 
many other things to fill one with surprise 
and wonder; for flying seems to be an art 
and a delight to the wild goose, as it is to 
the eagle, and the young birds learn it 
slowly. First, there was the wonderful spiral 
descent from the heights, one of the rarest 
and most impressive sights in animate na- 
ture, which I have described elsewhere. A 
great wedge of birds would come winging 
high over the lake, talking volubly to each 
other, as geese do in their journeyings over 
strange territory. Suddenly above the clamor 



i6o 



nv/ld 









would sound a peremptory honk. All the 
talking would cease instantly; the wedge 
would break into two parts, the sides 
1A/ swing together in a single long line, 

*s and down they would come, one after 
another, as if gliding down an invisible wind- 
ing staircase, in perfect order and in perfect 
silence. 

I have learned since, in watching geese in 
many places, that this flight is never used 
"^^^JT when the birds go out 
to feed or when they swing to 
the decoys, but only when they re- 
turn well fed and contented to their night's 
lodging-place. In the far North, where I saw 
it but a few rare times, it seems to be a kind 
of practice drill, with the object of enabling 
the young birds to come down safely from a 
vast height to a little wooded pond, where a 
direct descent in a long slanting line would 
be almost impossible on account of the trees 
in the way. Like the wild geese, Hukweem 
the loon almost invariably comes down to a 
little pond in a spiral, and uses the 
long, gentle incline only when the 




^ 




waters are wide enough to enable him to 

. . 161 

come down in this way without hitting the 

trees on the shore. Since the Canada j A r-j^j ^ 
geese are mostly raised in the open ^ - ^^^f 
barren lands, where there are only a ^ 1||§| 
few stunted trees near the nesting-places, and 
where such a flight is entirely unnecessary, it 
is at least possible that the old birds train the 
young to this flight to prepare them for the 
halting-places on their southern migration. 

Scarcely less impressive than the wonder- 
ful spiral of the Canada goose, when he winds 
slowly down the invisible staircase of the 
winds, is another descent, — a slow, majestic 
settling downward in perfect column, like 
the fall of a feather in its airy lightness. At 
sight of the pond in which they are to rest, 
the leader honks sharply and the whole flock 
swings into line behind him. Then with 
every wing set at the same angle the column 
slants downward slowly, gently, silently, bend- 
ing to their rest with indescribable grace. 
When the drooping feet touch the water 
the stiffened muscles relax ; the broad wings 
sweep them gently over the surface for an 



l62 



^Wi/d Goose 




instant, till all momentum is stilled ; and 
then, with a touch like a kiss, the broad gray 
breasts settle into the blue waters. 



An instant later they have swung 



Ways • 



into a close group, watching intently 
to see that the flight is ended and the waters 
safe ; then they turn away, honking gladly, 
to their bathing and preening. 

Much more stirring is the descent of an- 
other and smaller goose, the black brant, in 
which wild hilarity seems to break loose all 
at once in the solemn flock. On approach- 
ing a pond the leader, instead of lowering 
his flight, will often call them up to an enor- 
mous height, where they circle silently for 
a moment over the water, as if measuring 
the plunge. Again the sharp signal of the 
leader, and pandemonium breaks suddenly 
loose, just as a lot of orderly boys break and 
tumble over the school-house steps at recess 
time. Down they come, no orderly, majestic 
descent this time, but a madcap rout that 
makes you catch breath in astonishment. 
Whirling, diving, plunging, down they come, 
somersaulting like a flock of tumbler pigeons 



and whooping to break their throats. The 
glorious rush and tumble makes you want to 
join it, to jump up and fling away your »*/••* 
hat and just yell. Near the water, and , * 
just before you think the geese will *s K 
certainly break their necks, the scene sud- 
denly changes. The great wings spread and 
set themselves stiffly ; the clamor ceases ; the 
wild birds circle into orderly line ; and then, 
throwing wings and breasts against the air, 
they stop flight in an instant and drop grace- 
fully, silently, into the water. 

Farther north, in the same cold waters 
where Waptonk gathers with his kind, but 
far away from his tumbling cousins, one 
may watch the gannet's flight, which is 
almost as remarkable in its wild pictur- 
esqueness. Winging in from their long 
ocean voyaging, a flock of the great birds 
will rush together over the spot where one 
of their scouts has located a school of her- 
ring near the surface. At first they plunge 
swiftly, every bird for himself, but as the 
numbers increase to hundreds the whole 
flock rises and circles swiftly over the school. 




164 



^W//d 




oose 

Ways 



No falling now in a wild mass to smother 
the fish or frighten them away. Instead, 
they whirl in a great white cloud over 
the sea, the outer birds moving more 
swiftly and seeming gradually to be 
drawn in towards the center, like a whirl- 
wind of great snowflakes. From the center 
the birds plunge downward in a single slen- 
der column, every bird striking the water 
and getting away with his fish just in time 
to escape the falling bird that comes rushing 
after him. Then he rejoins the whirling cir- 
cle and seems to wait his turn to be drawn 
into the center and plunge again. 

But I must not be drawn away into the 
orderly flight of other birds, else I must speak 
of the crane and plover and eagle, and of Sir 
Humphry Davy's wonder, on the crags of 
Ben Nevis, at seeing a pair of the royal birds 
plainly teaching their eaglets the wonderful 
spiral of Waptonk, only they glided up the 
winding staircase to the blue heavens instead 
of downward to the blue water. 

One thing forced itself gradually upon my 
attention as I watched these interesting birds 




Then to the ocean and 
back again " 



in their own domain, and that is, that the . 

107 
flight of the young geese is directed con- 



tinually, and perhaps consciously, by ~ , 
the old birds to future needs of which ja^**^ 
the young know absolutely nothing. ^ fj 
From the moment they begin to use their ^-- 
wings, first in short scrambling flights, then 
to new ponds and feeding-grounds which the 
old gander has discovered, then to the ocean 
and back again, and then the rising against 
the wind and the spiral descent and the dis- 
ciplined wedge flight with his fellows, — in 
all these things the gosling was being pre- 
pared for the great journey that was speedily 
to follow. 

The next question, a great and open one, 
is the question of instinct and migration. 
That Waptonk should migrate southward in 
the fall is simple enough, being a case of 
necessity ; but why he should leave a land of 
plenty and quiet in the South, in the days 
when there were no men to bother him, and 
seek the cold bare hospitality of the North 
to rear his young, is still the unanswered 
question. At present it is simply a case of 



1 68 



c WiId Qoose 
Ways 




habit, repeated and strengthened year after 
year ; but how the habit first began, and gained 
such increasing hold upon them, is 



one of the mysteries. Whether the 
goslings, left entirely to themselves, 
would ever migrate, is extremely doubtful. 
Here and there, in the scattered fishing- 
villages on the wild coasts, I would find a 
flock of the birds that had been hatched 
under a domestic fowl from the wild eggs, 
or that had been caught young and brought 
alive to the village. So far as I could dis- 
cover from my own observation and from 
questioning their owners, these pure wild 
birds showed no instinct whatever to mi- 
grate at any season. 

Occasionally, indeed, they would roam 
away and try to make their way back over 
the hills and barrens to the flashets where 
they were born. If a passing flock called to 
them overhead, whether the nock were going 
south or north, or simply out to the shoals 
to feed, the young birds, like domestic geese, 
would call back and stretch their wings to 
follow. But aside from this purely social 



excitement I saw no evidence, and found , 

169 
none, though I hunted diligently for it, to 

show that the young goose has any Tjr//^j f> 

inborn tendency to drive him either r* , 
south or north. -^ 4 

The social impulse, therefore, — the tend- 
ency under excitement which draws a creature 
to his own kind, — may altogether account for 
Waptonk's migration, and perhaps for that 
of all other young birds. A thrush in a cage 
grows uneasy and excited at the call of a num- 
ber of his free fellows at any season. An old 
horse shut up in a stable-yard kicks up his 
dull heels and gallops stiffly along the wall 
when a troop of cavalry goes jingling along 
the road before him. A man standing at 
the window feels stirring within him the 
impulse, which his child obeys hilariously, 
to go down and join a moving procession. 
Beast calls to beast, and bird to bird, and 
man to man, the free to the slave, to come 
out and be free with his fellows. So the 
question arises whether the simple social 
instinct be not enough to account for the 
whole phenomenon of migration. That, of 



170 



c Wi7d Qoose 
Ways 




course, does not consider the origin of the 
habit, which may be sought for in geological 
changes on the earth's surface ; but it 



simplifies enormously our thought of 
the flocks that call to us from the 
high heavens every fall and springtime. 
The old birds are obeying a lifelong habit, 
copied, as most habits are, from their elders. 
The young birds are simply going where 
the others go, and following their leaders 
as they were trained to do. 









WAS out for a good swim 
in the big lake one day when, 
as I ranged past a point, I 
glanced shoreward and saw 
three deer — a doe and two 
fawns — feeding peacefully in a sheltered 
cove. Here was something much better than 
swimming. I had approached deer before in 
many ways, by day and night, sometimes on 
foot, sometimes in a canoe, sometimes under 
shadow of the jack-light, sometimes from a 
tree over a salt-lick, but never as a frog in 
my own primitive element. So in a sudden 
spirit of curiosity I determined to find out 

l 7Z 




174 




-r:..: 



how they would regard me or any other 
animal when they knew not what it was. 
I#(f I had approached within perhaps a 
hundred yards, swimming low in the 
water and silently, when some slight 
motion caught the doe's eye and she looked 
up and saw me. As she threw up her head 
I stopped and remained still as possible, just 
fanning the water with my hands to keep 
my head afloat, while the doe stood as if 
carved from marble, watching the strange 
thing intently. 

When the deer went to feeding again, ap- 
parently satisfied that I was nothing of any 
account, I rolled over on my back and pushed 
steadily shoreward till more than half the 
distance was covered, when I rolled back 
again, and there stood the doe and her fawns, 
all three with raised heads and ears set for- 
ward, plainly asking a hundred questions 
about the queer frog that they had never 
seen before. I sounded at once ; found that 
the water was still ten or twelve feet deep; 
remained out of sight as long as possible ; 
then glided up to the surface again. The 




'All three with raised heads and ears set forward, 
plainly asking a hundred questions" 



177 




deer were now quietly feeding; only, as if 
not entirely sure of themselves, they were 
moving along the shore, all three with ^ 
their backs toward me. I followed z£ , "t -A 
rapidly, turning closer to the shore 
till my feet swept bottom. Then, sitting in 
the water with only my head out and my 
hair dripping down over my face, I splashed 
to attract their attention. All three whirled 
at the sound, and again pointed their ears 
and noses at me, asking plainly who I was. 
One fawn, a bright, beautiful little crea- 
ture, came a few steps in my direction, till 
he stood within twenty yards and I could see 
his sides swell as he breathed. A fragment 
of a lily leaf dropped by his mother caught 
his attention and he picked it up, chewed it 
a moment with quick, nervous little bites, 
then, as some slight motion on my part 
caught his eye, he stood with the leaf hang- 
ing from his mouth and again forgot every- 
thing but his intense curiosity. The other 
fawn moved nearer to his mother till he stood 
close by her side, and lifted his head quickly 
to nudge her twice, as if to ask, " What is it, 




~ mother? what is it? " and then made trump- 
ets of his ears and an exclamation-point of 
his eyes and nose to find out for him- 
self the answer to his question. 
The doe came a step forward, 
stamped the earth with her forefoot — which 
is a trick that all deer have, to make -you 
move and show what you are — and in- 
stantly the little fawn nearest me did the 
same thing. Nearer and nearer the doe 
came, till she stood beside the first fawn, 
when she glided between him and me, as if 
to shield him from any danger. Not once, 
came on, did she take her eyes 
an instant from my face, and 
all the while her ears were set 
to catch the slightest sound. 
Then, standing with feet 
braced ready to 
jump, she stretched 
pt herself upward, 
K seeming to grow a 




£7t 




full foot in height before my eyes. Slowly 
she shrank back again to her normal size, 
hesitated, advanced a step, turned -^ 
for an instant to look at the second " 
fawn, to be sure where he w r as, and 
set her nose and ears again in my direction. 

She was now standing in the water up to ,_ 
her knees, within a few yards of the queer 
thing that she could neither hear nor smell, 
and that she had certainly never seen before. 
I think she would have come nearer, for 
there was hardly any fear manifest, only in- 
tense curiosity; but the first fawn, unwill- 
ing to be hidden while there was anything to 
see, came out from behind her and pushed 
to the front, stopping occasionally to strike 
the water sharply with his forefoot, while 
the mother twdce swung her head against 
him, as if to push him back. His boldness 
evidently alarmed her, for she turned slowly, 
her body tense as a coiled spring, and waded 
out stiffly, pausing between her slow steps 
to listen to what might happen behind her. 
The fawn stood as she had left him, un- 
mindful of her example, and to reassure him 




£ I sank out of sight and lay on the bottom, 
where I heard plainly the rapid tread of his 
feet in the water as he followed his 
. mother, now that there was nothing 
more to see. 
When I came up again all the deer were 
standing close together, looking back at the 
spot where the queer frog had disappeared, 
and I began to play on their curiosity to 
make them forget their fears. Sinking back 
till my face was awash, I filled my mouth 
with water and spurted it up into the air 
two or three times, and lay down on the bot- 
tom again. That was altogether too much 
for their curiosity, for as my eyes came 
above the surface once more all three were 
coming in my direction with short, nervous 
steps, each one fidgeting and turning his 
head occasionally to see where the others 
were and what they were doing. My sudden 
appearance stopped their advance, and when 
— for I was half choked — I blew some water 
out of my nose, the sudden sound startled the 
tense mother and she whirled aside. This 
time there was less hesitation. She did not 



i8i 




yet know what the thing was ; but she evi- 
dently did know that one of her little fawns 
was altogether too naturally inquis- ^ 
itive, and that he was not yet big -? - 
enough to take care of himself in 
a world of danger. So she walked straight 
for the woods, stopping only once to look 
back at me doubtfully. One fawn went 
ahead of her; the other stayed where he 
was, watching me with bright, inquisitive 
eyes till his mother vanished in the woods, 
when, finding himself suddenly all alone, he 
grew afraid and cantered after her. 

When the underbrush closed behind the 
last fawn I struck out for deep water, intend- 
ing to round the next point and surprise 
them again; for when deer leave a cove in 
this way, without being frightened, 
they generally head 
straight through the T^%1^U^f§& 
woods for the next 
good place to continue 
their feeding. I had al- 
most reached the 



point, swimming T u 




182 




swiftly, when the sharp thump of a deer's 
foot on the earth drew my attention, and 
there stood the doe, her body hidden 
- in the underbrush, her head thrust 
out of an opening among the leaves, 
watching me intently. She had concealed 
her fawns in the woods and had come back 
to find out for herself a little more about the 
big frog that acted so queerly. And seeing 
me swimming past without regarding her, 
she had to stamp just once to call attention 
to herself, like a shy child who refuses your 
advances but who takes some little indirect 
way of reminding you that she is there when 
you seem indifferent. This time, however, I 
turned away from shore and, swimming on 
my back, watched her closely till she hurried 
away to find her fawns. Then I headed 
straight for the next cove. 

When I doubled the point, some ten min- 
utes later, the deer were close at 
hand, again feeding at the edge 
of the water. It was 
% deeper here, with only a 
few lily pads on long 








i83 




slender stems. Taking a few deep breaths, I 
dove and swam under water straight towards 
them. In a minute I was up again, /^k TT ^^ 
and there, not ten feet away, stood 
the inquisitive fawn, his back towards 
me in utter unconsciousness. He whirled at 
the ripple, which I could not help making, 
and stood for an instant as if hypnotized, 
surprise, wonder, and — yes, it certainly was 
fear now that made the beautiful, innocent 
eyes so big and luminous. The mother sud- 
denly threw up her head as if struck. Just 
one glance at the huge frog so near her lit- 
tle one, then — Heeyeu! heu! heu! heu! the 
sharp alarm-cry of the deer rang out and 
she bounded for the shore, mud and water 
flying, and her white flag shining through 
the shower to show the way that the fawns 
must follow. 

I still think that sHe did not know who or 
what I was ; but I was altogether too big to 
be near her fawn, and she was taking no 
chances. The little fellow broke away on the 
instant. Heeeeyeu! heu! he whistled, joining 
his little voice to the big alarm that went 



r, rushing along the shore to warn every feed- 
ing deer of the presence of danger. He 
^^ gained the second fawn in a few 

. jumps; side by side they sailed over 
a fallen log; and the last glimpse I 
had of them was too little white flags, rising, 
*> falling, winking, blinking among the leaves, 
■ like the wings of a bird, as they jumped 
Ma^P" away into the shelter of the green woods. 






i8 5 




iFiigiinnKr© 




HERE is one curious thing 
about trout-fishing which the 
guides and guide-books will 
never tell you until it is too 
late, namely, that wherever 
you go in the North Woods for your sum- 
mer vacation, the good fishing is always 
about seven miles farther on. 

During the winter, when your daily work 
is sweetened by dreams of play, you read 
roseate accounts of big trout and abundant 
fishing in a certain place by a certain camp, 
and the summer fever stirs strongly within 

you. More than ever you dream dreams at 

187 





Good 

Fishing 



your work ; you begin to save your money, to 
varnish your rod and examine your flies, and 
to get your tackle together. A thou- 




sand times, by day or night, in the 
quiet of your little room or the roar 
of the city streets, you see the glint of light 
on woodland waters, smell the fragrance of 
the woods in the early morning, and start up 
with eyes suddenly brightened at the flash- 
ing rush of a big trout as he rises to your fly. 
At last the happy day comes when these 
sweet dreams promise to become more sweet 
realities. You travel long on a dusty train, 
get your head almost jolted off on a buck- 
board ride over rocks and roots, tramp till 
your back aches under your pack, cross a 
lake and a portage and two more lakes, and 
finally you get to the Promised Land. Next 
morning at daylight you are eagerly whip- 
ping the best pools, catching only stupid 
chub and a few trout fingerlings ; and 
Vj> your sweet dream vanishes as if you 
^ had fallen out of bed, instead of wak- 
_» ing pleasantly to hear the birds 
^^ singing. 



It makes little difference where you go ~ 
within the region of advertised camps, down 
the Penobscot, up the St. John, the -, 
story is the same. You are saddened, „- J~i 
disappointed, distrustful of men and &- 

of human promises, till your guide tells you 
enthusiastically of a famous place "about 
seven mile from here " where there is always 
good fishing. To reach it you get up even 
earlier in the morning, climb a mountain, 
crawl through an alder swamp, get w r et, hun- 
gry, fly-bitten. And once again you catch 
chub and fingerlings. There is another pond 
seven miles farther on ; but don't go. The 
fact is that there are trout in all these 
places; that they come to the surface in 
the spring and are easily caught w T ith pork 
or worms or red flannel, and so inspire the 
camps and railroads to offer golden promises. 
In summer the trout vanish, and not one 
guide in a hundred can give you any help in 
finding or catching them. There is a place 
seven miles farther on — but enough, enough ! 
This is to suggest that you may stay where 
you are and have peace and good fishing. 





Let me begin the story with a confession 
and a heresy. I like still-fishing, and that 
- -, * is the confession. It will make every 

73"<sfofr>d ' mem ber of the Fly Brotherhood look 
^ at me sadly, thinking of the classic 
definition of fishing as " a pole and line, 
with a fish at one end and a fool at the 
other"; which, of course, does not apply 
to the delicate art of fly-fishing. But still- 
fishing is also an art, a fine art, in its per- 
fection a greater art than fly-fishing. This 
is the heresy, and even to whisper it is like 
dangling a Red-Ibis fly in front of a bull- 
frog. " Bait-fishing ? bah ! " To catch such 
a fellow, to spill his bait, and burn his gear 
at the stake, and eschew his company, and 
blackball him at the Catchumalot Fishing 
Club is what the Brotherhood would plainly 
like to do. Instead, they glance under your 
canoe seat and suddenly stop talking. There 
is a trout hidden away in the shadow, — a 
three-pounder at least, judging from the broad 
tail that sticks out of the moss and wet 
grasses, — and the fly-fisherman, who likes 
big trout as well as another fellow, begins 



to wonder secretly and enviously how in 
the world you caught that big one in this 
warm weather. So let me tell you. *^^^* 

u c «.• fi • Good 

By way of getting together m a jpggfof nf * 
friendly talk, and entirely without 
prejudice, there are certain canons of fishing 
upon which all good disciples of the gentle 
Izaak are generally agreed. First, what a 
man brings home in his heart from fishing 
is of more consequence than what he brings 
in his fish-basket. Second, it is neither sport 
nor fun nor sweet reasonableness to go on 
catching fish after you have already landed 
enough for the table. To catch fish and 
waste them is unpardonable butchery; and 
to catch them " just for sport " and let them 
go again savors a little of taking a ball and 
going out to play barn-tick with yourself, to 
say nothing of a suggestion of unnecessary 
cruelty in your amusement. I have a reason- 
able conviction, based upon some experience 
and observation, that trout do not suffer 
when hooked. Neither do they enjoy the 
sensation ; and a man ought to be happy 
enough himself in the wilderness to give 





every other creature a chance to be happy 
in his own way. Third, it is much more fun 
j~, , to fish when trout are shy and hard 

j-f- . - - . . to entice than it is to whip a pool 
** where they rise by twos and threes 
and keep you busy. It may be exciting for 
a time, but it certainly is no sport to keep 
at a pool, such as I have sometimes seen, 
where you can fill your canoe with trout, if 
you are so disposed, without any particular 
skill or thoughtfulness. Fourth, it is more 
fun to locate one big trout, to study him, 
tempt him, get him, than to fill your basket 
with little fellows that tumble up at your 
first invitation. And fifth, when you are 
downright hungry and really need fish, then 
any honest method that puts a big trout 
in your fry-pan, and keeps you sniffing im- 
patiently about the fire where Muctum the 
Indian is slow about supper, is good fishing. 
I remember once when Phil and I were 
alone on a salmon river, deep in the wilder- 
ness. He was busy collecting rare specimens 
for his University, and I was well content 
to study the wild creatures, finding them 



infinitely more interesting in their own cov- 
erts than when stuffed and labeled and put 
in the museum. There had been no ^ r 

. , , .., Good 

ram for weeks; the water was un- pr-afafr-kri 
usually low and clear, and though 
there were plenty of salmon they simply 
would not rise. We had whipped every pool 
in vain, at all hours; we had even built a 
fire on the shore and cast our white-winged 
flies over the shadowy circle where the light 
vanished into outer darkness; and we were 
pulling our belts tighter and tighter after 
two weeks' feeding on pork and huckle- 
berries. Then I took Phil's collecting-gun, 
one afternoon, and went out and sat on a 
rock in the pool where I had often seen a big 
salmon jumping. After three hours' waiting 
he suddenly flashed up in the air, and that 
night we ate him. Never a fish tasted better ^MA 
or left more happy memories. I smile yet, ^ 
after twenty years, every time I think 
of him. 

" But," says the disgusted an 
gler, " you don't know anything 
about fly-fishing,— 






the delicate tackle, the cast light as a snow- 
194 . . & 

flake, the rise, the strike, the ' whir of the 
reel, the play, the struggle, the — the 
^. jf . . everlasting sport of the thing ! " 
rlSDing Surely I do, after trying it on a 
hundred streams from Labrador southward. 
When trout are rising to the fly, they 
offer you the keenest of sport — no fisher- 
man would ask or want anything better ; but 
when they will not rise, when they are deep 
in the lake, no one knows where, and refuse 
fly and trolling-spoon and worms and min- 
nows and cut bait, then you get down to the 
real art of fishing. You must first find your 
fish where he hides, and then you must find 
something that will entice him to rise when 
he is indisposed, and make him eat when he 
is not hungry. And you will not learn either 
of these things by instruction. I have taken 
a man who never had a fly-rod in his hand ; 
in two hours I have taught him to make a 
decent cast ; and I have seen that same raw 
amateur catch bigger fish than an old fly- 
fisherman, and in the same pools. For in 
fly-fishing luck is always one element to be 



reckoned with, and a trout's peculiar dispo- 
sition is another; and often when Skookum 



195 



the trout has refused to consider your 



Good 



F7s/}fng 



most delicate flies and casting, he will 
rush savagely at a clumsy bunch of 
feathers that tumbles in with a splash like 
a young robin, evidently in sheer anger and 
with the desire to get the thing out of his 
way as quickly as possible. But it takes at 
least ten years and Job's patience to learn 
still-fishing ; and then you are only at the 
beginning of the delicate art. 

First, as to finding your hidden fish, it is 
well to remember that a trout or a salmon 
likes water that is just a trifle wanner than 
his cold blood. That is why he rises to the 
surface in spring, and why he disappears in 
summer. It is generally claimed that he fol- 
lows the food-supply ; but a trout in the right 
place can get along comfortably month after 
month without visible food and without losing 
weight; and when you find large trout rest- 
ing lazily in a deep pool, unmindful of abun- 
dant minnows that swarm in shallower and 
warmer water, you will probably conclude __ 







that the temperature rather than the food- 
supply is generally a governing factor in his 
actions. Sometimes your trout goes 

r*- m p% m ri ^° ^ e depths 5 more often, since he 
& likes " living " water, he finds where a 
spring bubbles up from the bottom and loafs 
there all day long, only moving out of the 
comfortable spot to feed occasionally at twi- 
light; so that your canoe often glides over 
a score of good fish that give absolutely no 
hint of their presence. For, curiously enough, 
I have never seen them break water in such 
places, though in feeding elsewhere at twi- 
light you can hear the water plop-plopping 
and see the little wavelets go circling shore- 
ward wherever a trout is hunting. 

I remember especially a little lake — Dacy 
Pond, in the Nesowadnehunk Valley — where 
there is a famous place. There are plenty 
of trout in the lake, clean, silvery, beautiful 
fish, but unusually notional. For days at a 
time they will hide and sulk, refusing every 
variety of fly and bait that you can think to 
offer. Then there comes an hour — it may 
be at twilight, or during a shower, or when 



the sun pours down and you think that no 

. . 197 

self-respecting trout would show himself at 

the surface — when they will tumble _, 
up eagerly at anything, and stop again p*j s fof n g 
as suddenly as they began. When I *=C 

camped at the lake I asked a guide, who had 
spent twenty years in the region, if there 
were any springs or deep holes where the 
trout lurked and where we could be reason- 
ably sure of getting a fish for our fry-pan; 
and he said no. "When they bite they bite; 
and when they don't you eat pork solitary. 
It's no possible use to go on fishing," he 
assured me. 

One still day, when I had been drifting 
for hours over the lake, studying the bottom, 
some shadows caught my eye for an instant 
and vanished. Now, when you see shadows 
like that it means trout, and you must not 
splash or thump the canoe or even raise your 
paddle, for trout are easily frightened. So I 
let my canoe drift slowly over the spot, 
paddled around in a great circle, and then 
drifted slowly over it again. There was no 
mistake ; the bottom was covered with big 





trout. After half an hour's waiting, in order 
198 & 

to rest the fish and let them forget what- 

ever they might have seen, I began 
r -^. - . to drop my flies very lightly from a 

*r distance; but there was no response. 
Then I went ashore, found some grubs, at- 
tached one to a small hook on a fine leader, 
set him afloat on a chip for a raft, and let 
him drift slowly, naturally over the place, 
with ten times the delicate art that it had 
taken to cast my flies. When he was just 
over the spot where I had seen the shadows 
thickest there was the faintest possible move- 
ment of the tip of my rod ; the raft stopped 
as the leader straightened ; the grub tumbled 
in, and in an instant I was fast to a big one. 
In half an hour I had all the fish I wanted, 
— fine, vigorous, hard-fleshed trout, from one 
to three pounds weight. They had been 
lying on the bottom, just over a huge spring 
that came boiling up through a split rock, 
in the most unlikely looking spot at the edge 
of some lily-pads. You could go there at any 
time, except at twilight when they occasion- 
ally scattered, and, if it was too bright for 



fly-fishing, let a grub or worm or grasshopper 
drift delicately. into the place, and be sure of 
good fishing and an excellent supper. , 

There are just such spots as this in „~ -. . 
nearly every lake frequented by trout ^ 

and landlocked salmon, and it is the first 
manifestation of the still-fisher's art to find 
them. Sometimes, instead of a spring, trout 
select a spot on the bottom in deep water, 
not always the deepest in the lake, but where 
the temperature and the surroundings suit 
them. And in this, you must remember, they 
are as notional as a fox looking for just the 
right spot on the southern hillside to sleep 
away the daylight. In one spot only a few 
rods square there may be a score of large 
trout and salmon, while only a few yards 
away you may fish all day long and catch 
nothing but cusk and eels. As they are fifty 
feet under water, where you cannot possibly 
see them, and as you are out on the open 
lake in your canoe, it requires no small 
patience to find them and no small skill to 
locate the spot by exact ranges on the shore, 
so that you can come quickly again to the 




200 




Good 



same spot and drop your frog or minnow 

or grub or worm exactly w T here you know it 

will be most appreciated. Watching 

, a still-fisherman at play, you think, 

flS/llng u qj^ what a c } lum p ) sitting there in 

the sun or rain waiting for a bite ! " But 
save your pity; the still-fisherman is glad 
enough in his heart. He is watching the 
lake, the woods, the lights and shadows, the 
fish-hawk wheeling, the deer and her fawns 
on the shore, the clouds drifting over the 
mountain. Far down under the delicate tip 
of his rod there is a minnow quivering about 
in the changing currents, and just six feet 
under the minnow two or three pairs of eyes 
are looking up steadily, watching it. No 
hurry, no worry. It is not in trout nature 
to watch a tidbit like that for many hours 
without rising at last to sample it. Then 
the still-fisherman will "get busy." When 
he comes into camp he 
)ne trout that 
the dozen you 
with the fly 
)k like smelts 




and chub-bait. He will have seen more, 

201 

thought more, felt more, and enjoyed far 
more than you, with your ceaseless ^ . 

changing of flies and floundering ; ,-*. *~1 
and you may even confess, as you &- 

think it all over from your blanket, looking 
up at the stars, that the art which located 
and enticed and caught that one huge fish 
and was perfectly satisfied, is on the whole 
quite worthy to stand with your own. 

Among many such happy spots that I 
have found and fished on wilderness lakes, 
when trout would not rise to the fly or when 
I had enough of fly-fishing for the little 
fellows, there is one fountain of perpetual 
youth which makes me happy every time I 
think of it. It is on a large lake among the 
mountains, a beautiful place, where it is joy 
just to sit in your canoe, whether the trout 
bite or not, and lose yourself in the peace 
and silence and harmony of the world. More- 
over, it is good fishing. It is near a town, so 
near that many sportsmen pass it by every 
year and use up all their time and patience 
in thrashing more distant lakes and rivers 





for the little fellows. The guides all told 
202 . & 

me that it was useless to try this lake in 
^ • midsummer ; but I had heard all that 

^. . . . before, in many places, and so left 
^ them to follow their own devices. 
One day, in sounding over the lake, I found 
a spot where a shoal ended in a ledge which 
dropped almost sheer from twenty to forty- 
two feet of water. Then there was a shelf, 
some ten or twelve feet wide, and beyond 
that another drop into sixty feet. This shelf 
was hardly a dozen yards long and hard 
enough to locate, with your canoe bob- 
bing merrily and the waves dancing past 
your ranges ; but when you did find it you 
camped right there, if you had wisdom and 
patience. The fish were under you, and it 
was simply a question of your own skill 
whether you ate a big one for your supper; 
though you might fish all around the spot 
for days and catch nothing worth taking 
home with you. Indeed, after finding the 
spot I gave the ranges to a dozen different 
guides and sportsmen ; but they all came 
back empty-handed. They did not know 



203 



Good 



the virtue of an accurate sounding-line, 
and that in summer it is more essential for 
the fisherman to know the bottom of 
the lake than its surface. F^fshfnri 

For some reason the big trout and ii 

salmon loved to lie on that shelf, hidden 
deep in the heart of the big lake. They 
were fat and full of smelts, and had to be 
coaxed with every variety of dainty, so that 
often you must wait for hours before they 
would rise to your repeated and changing 
invitation. When you did get a rise out of 
one, he kept you guessing. With a five- 
ounce rod and a delicate leader to take a 
large fish out of that deep, cold water; to 
keep him from tangling up in your anchor- 
line (for which he always headed at the first 
rush) or from whipping your rod under the 
canoe and smashing it at the last, and all > 
the while he was unseen, but 
vigorous as a wild calf on a 
halter; to keep guessing 
by jumps whether he 
were lightly hooked 
and whether your 




/*"* 



t 

i - 





leader would stand the strain for another 
204 

moment, — that would go a long way toward 
~, - satisfying even the man who regards 

z^r. »- . sport as the number of anxious min- 
** utes a fish gives you before you get 
him. Once a huge trout frayed my leader 
against the anchor-line. I left him to un- 
tangle himself — which is the only good way 
— and then played him up to the canoe. 
The delicate leader parted, and he lay there 
on the surface for a full moment, fanning 
the water with his broad tail, giving me a 
glimpse of the largest trout I have ever seen 
under my own rod. Another time, with a 
light fly-rod, I struck an eight-pound salmon 
there, and after ten minutes' hard play 
reached the landing-net for him. He went 
through it, and clear to the bottom again, 
and then fifty feet farther away, the rod 
bending double and the reel screaming like 
a lunatic behind him. Then, standing in 
the bobbing canoe with the handle of the 
landing-net under my arm, I played him 
through the bottom of the net for a full 
fifteen minutes more, till he came quietly 



alongside. That was sport enough, from 
the man's viewpoint. I am not yet quite 
certain how the salmon regarded it. ' . 

In finding the hiding-places of these ,-*. pf- . 
large fish it is useless to depend, as . K. 

many fishermen do, on whipping the whole 
lake with your flies at evening. Once or 
twice in the course of a long summer you 
may get a shock when a big fellow rolls 
up at your Silver Doctor from the shallows 
near a cold brook, where he often goes hunt- 
ing minnows in the late twilight; but your 
flies are useless by day, for these big trout 
never rise from deep water, and seldom from 
the cold springs near shore. A good way to 
find the springs is to drift about the lake 
on a still, clear day, watching the bottom 
keenly. It is a most pleasant task exploring 
this green, strange under-world, and you will 
double your pleasure by keeping your eyes 
and your heart wide open to what passes 
on the shore as you glide along. When you 
locate a spring in this way you will generally 
find fish at the same instant. Therefore your 
approach must be slow and silent as one of 





, the cloud shadows ; otherwise you will not 
206 . J 

get even a glimpse of the trout as they dart 
aside. When searching in deep water 



Good 

Fls/ting 



you will, of course, use a thermometer. 
That will give you the exact tempera- 
ture near bottom, and the difference of a de- 
gree or two spells trout or chub for supper. 

Most important to the still-fisherman is to 
know the bottom of his lake. The big trout 
and salmon are not scattered around promis- 
cuously, but gathered in groups here and 
there; and where they are you will find no 
other fish. Now and then they leave their 
comfortable beds to follow the shoals of 
smelt and minnows ; but at such times you 
will catch one only by happy accident and 
by a different kind of fishing, using a live or 
a trolling bait and keeping it moving rapidly 
just under where the little fish are break- 
ing water frantically to escape their enemies. 
j^. :/ :, During a large part of the day, often for 
' -/< days or weeks at a time, the big trout 
iH lie still in one spot that suits 
their own notions. They like a 
clean bottom to rest on, — sand 








or gravel covered with a soft black sediment, 

b 207 

or, best of all, a bed of dead wood finely 

broken and gathered together by the 
eddies and changing currents. The „. * . 
way to find this is to fasten to your &~ 

sounding-line a heavy lead with a hollow 
end filled with white soap or tallow. When- 
ever this strikes it picks up a little of the 
bottom and tells you at a glance just what 
you want to know. 

As for your sounding-line, upon which 
you must depend for accurate information, 
have that on a free-running, multiplying reel. 
Let it be marked, not in feet — for you can- 
not measure your fishing-line with a yard- 
stick every time you reel in a fish — but in 
reaches; that is, the distance between your 
outstretched hands, which is a trifle less than 
your own height. And have bits of hard 
white cord fastened into your sounding-line 
by means of the knot known to sailors as a 
bowline on a bight, and have these bits of 
cord marked by tying in each one a number 
of simple knots corresponding to the number 
of reaches ; or else fasten bits of fine white 





R tape into your sounding-line and mark the 
number of reaches, or fathoms, with indelible 
^ _ ink, so that when your lead touches 

^. , '. . bottom you know by a glance at the 
** nearest mark on your sounding-line 
just how deep the water is. Then when you 
begin to fish, having found the right depth 
and temperature and the right kind of bot- 
tom, there will be no guesswork as to how 
much of your fishing-line you will need. 
Don't, please don't, do as your guide tells 
you: " Put a sinker on near your bait, let it 
touch bottom, and then haul it up a little." 
That is pure blundering, — " plugging," as 
they call it themselves, — which will never 
capture a wary fish. A light sinker — just 
enough to carry your line down, but not 
enough to keep it from swaying with the 
..currents — is put at the end of your line, 
and below that you fasten six or eight feet 
of fine leader. Taking your bait in one hand, 
measure out your line exactly in reaches. If 
the water is nine reaches, or fifty-four feet 
deep, — and even when the lake is much 
deeper I have seldom found my best fish 



beyond this limit, — you must measure out 
only eight, and allow a foot or two extra for 
the distance from the tip of your rod, -, • 

■* f -^ fi -i f Good 

as it rests idly over the side or your 7^. ^ . - 
canoe, to the surface of the water. ^ 

Then when you put your rod overboard and 
lie back comfortably for the happy hours of 
fishing, you have the reasonable assurance 
that your bait is swaying gently some five or 
six feet over the spot where your fish is rest- 
ing. And that is exactly where your bait 
ought to be. If it is too near your trout, he 
will generally move aside and ignore it, per- 
haps because he notices the fraud attached. 
If it sways gently a few feet over his head, 
it seems to be a principle of trout psychology 
that after a certain time the bait gets on his 
nerves, or his stomach, and he rises to take 
it in. 

Once, as an experiment, in a spring hole 
near the foot of a big lake, I swung a bait in 
this fashion over some big trout that I knew 
well were not hungry, for again and again, 
on previous visits, they had refused every- 
thing I offered them. They saw my bait 





plainly enough, for at first one or another 
210 l J o . 

would slant up, almost touch it with his 
~, . nose, and turn lazily to the bottom. 

mc/jfnd P resen tly they ignored it altogether, 
^ and for five hours nothing happened. 
The trout lay on the bottom, idly wagging 
their fins. Then the largest fish rose like a 
flash and was away with my bait before I 
had time to lift the rod. 

This may, of course, be exceptional, and 
it is certainly more fun to fish when you 
do not see your trout; but it explains the 
still-fisherman's faith and patience. It never 
troubles him that he does not get a bite. He 
knows just where his bait is, and that just 
under the bait there is probably a big fish 
waiting for the psychologic moment to make 
things interesting. So he never wearies or 
gets impatient, and after he has been waiting 
five or six hours without a bite and the sad 
time comes when he must reel up and go 
home, he still lingers expectantly, gets every- 
thing else ready before lifting his rod, and 
then winds in his line slowly, so as to give 
the trout a last chance. A score of times, 





> 


11 

> 






KgjHh^ 




1 




1 / ^5?J 








r 


. 






j0 




1 




' 












Si 



Rose like a flash and was away with my bait 
before I had time to lift the rod " 



Fishing 



at least, after waiting for hours without a 
nibble, I have felt a savage tug and struck 
a large fish just as I was reeling in to — , 

go home. And that suggests another 
curious bit of trout psychology. He 
may ignore a bait as long as it swings there 
over his head, but often dashes eagerly after 
it the moment he thinks it is gone for good. 
Meanwhile, as you wait, you have the very 
best part of still-fishing; not catching fish, 
but better things, — sunshine and rain, light 
and shadow, clouds and mountain, lake and 
forest, birds and animals, — catch- 
ing a whole heart full of good^ 
things to send you home contented. 
Once, when still-fishing day after 
day in the same good place, I made 
friends with a wild gull, who was 
shy enough at first and hardly 
recognized the numerous friendly invitations 
that I sent in her direction. These were in 
the shape of little fish, delicious fat smelts 
caught in deep water, or chubs and minnows 
which I sometimes used for bait. Whenever 
the wind was right I would set these adrift, 



213 






one by one, till I had a long string extending 
from my canoe down towards the rock where 
- Queok the gull had her nest. Soon 
^. , . . she began to follow up my line of 
& silvery invitations, and gradually, in 
her own mind, she established a connec- 
tion between her new supply of food and its 
unknown source. Then she seemed at last 
to recognize my friendliness, and would rise 
from her rock the moment she saw my canoe 
double the point and would fly ahead of me 
to my fishing-ground. There she would cir- 
cle for hours around my canoe on tireless 
wings, ready to pick up any choice morsels 
that I set adrift for her. Again, on another 
lake, it was a fish-hawk that soon seemed 
to recognize the friendly fisherman who evi- 
dently had enough and to spare, and he 
w r ould wheel up the lake, whistling shrilly, 
the moment he saw my old canoe heading 
for the fishing-grounds. And whenever, from 
fishing too deep or too near the surface, I had 

a cusk or a big 
chub that I did 
not want, it always 




added to the weight of my own basket of 
trout or salmon to see Ismaques plunge 
down after my invitation and bear it *^ -.~j 
swiftly away to his hungry little ones. prf^J^ m r*rt 

I know not how to describe the joy &- 

of these simple experiences ; I am only sure 
that it adds enormously to the gladness of 
fishing whenever you find that you have 
bridged the chasm which separates these 
wild, shy lives from your own, and they lay 
aside their fears and learn to recognize and 
trust you. And besides the gull and the fish- 
hawk there are the loon and her two little 
fledgeling fishermen, a roving mink leaving 
his arrowy trail across the bay, the deer and 
her fawns feeding shyly in the cove yonder, 
stopping now and then to watch you, and 
one solitary, magnificent eagle resting on the 
winds high over the mountain top, whom 
you follow only with your eyes, and who 
presently leads you off, far away to a beauti- 
ful land of dreams, as you wait here con- 
tentedly for a bite. Soon you return with a 
sense of joy to the same pleasant spot, day 
after day, perfectly sure that you will have 





g good fishing. You sit in the bottom of your 
old canoe, leaning comfortably against an air- 
cushion ; the sunshine warms you ; the 



Good 

risfifng 




winds fan your cheek; the birds call 
for your ear alone ; and your light craft 
veers just enough to keep your bait moving, 
or goes canoedling over the waves just to make 
you comfortable or sleepy. No worry about 
results. Far below you, out of sight, your min- 
now or grub is moving naturally, and below 
him the trout are watching. They will take 
care of your fish-basket, while nature mean- 
while fills your heart with light and melody 
and peace to take home with you. 

This is the real joy of still-fishing, — to 
get acquainted with your own better nature 
and with the simple gladness of the world. I 
have seen a hundred fly-fishermen give up 
their sport, growing impatient or dissatis- 
fied after an hour's steady casting with no 
results; but I have never yet seen a real 
still-fisherman who wanted to stop, or who 
was not perfectly content with the little fish 
or the large mercies that he was catching. 









217 





ILLOOLEET the white- 
throated sparrow, Little Sweet 
Voice, as my Indians call him, 
sums up for me the peace and 
gladness of the big wilderness. 
The most interesting thing about him, during 
the spring and early summer when I meet 
him on the northern trout-streams and the 
salmon-rivers, is that he is always singing. 
Not only by day when all the woods are 
vocal, but by night also when all other little 
singers are still as the sleeping earth, Killoo- 
leet's heart seems full of the gladness that is 

breaking into life all around him. Whenever 

219 



220 



<rHimse/f 




3 



he wakes up his first impulse is always to 
sing, and the Micmacs call him the hour- 
bird, because they think he wakes 
and sings at regular intervals all 
night long. 
Sometimes as he sleeps on his fir-twig, 
just over the hidden nest of his mate, the 
moon peeps in and wakes him up ; sometimes 
a big moose glides by and brushes his little 
fir-tree ; sometimes he hears your canoe grate 
on the pebbles as you come home ; and some- 
times it is only Simmo the Indian taking a 
squint at the weather and lighting his pipe 
for a last smoke before he goes to sleep, and 
the flash of the match is mistaken by a sleepy 
bird for a star or the moon or the first dawn 
light over the mountain; but 
whatever it is that wakes Killoo- 
r leet, he tells you he is there not 
^^ by a frightened chirp or 
c |5 p^t: flurry, like other birds, but 
M $V? by a glad, tinkling little 
song that seems to 
" All 's well in 
wilderness." A 




*-1 



say, 
the 



i^fm 



iMM^ 



Si 



aG5 






hundred times I have heard him by my 

camp-fire, or when following the animals 

after dark in the big woods, but (r rr- 7/? 

only once when it seemed to me 

that his song had any other message 

or meaning than simple gladness. jlI^ilR 



The wind was howling across the big lake 
and the little canoe was jumping like a witch 
when we paddled ashore, Simmo and I, at 
the first inviting beach and jumped out on 
either side to ease our frail craft ashore. A 
storm was coming with the night, and we 
had little time to make all snug before it 
would break over our heads. First we threw 
our stuff out, turned the canoe over, and 
carried it well up out of reach of waves and 
wind. Then we whipped up my little tent, 
double-staked it down, and guyed the ridge- 
pole fore and aft to two big trees. " No time 
to build your commoosie ; sleep with me to- 
night," I called to Simmo as I gathered fir- 
boughs for a bed, while he started a fire and 
scrambled together a supper of tea, bacon and 
trout, dried-apple sauce, and good ash-bread. 



222 



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They were barely ready when the rain came 
down in torrents, and we grabbed everything 
~ from the fire and scuttled into my dry 
little tent. There we ate our supper 
with immense thankfulness, and then 
Simmo smoked his pipe, squinting out quiz- 
zically at the rain and the gale. 

" Fool-um rain dat time," he said con- 
tentedly. " Now I goin' make him do my 
work." He pushed all the dishes out where 
the rain would wash them well before morn- 
ing, then gathered his old blanket around 
him and, with a sigh of profound satisfac- 
tion, lay down to sleep. 

The night was intensely black, the rain 
falling, the gale roaring over the woods, and 
the waves lashing the shore wildly, when I 
threw a poncho over my head and slipped 
away into the darkness, following an old 
logging-road that I had noticed when I 
gathered the fir-boughs. What was I doing 
out in the woods at that hour? I don't 
exactly know ; partly following my instincts, 
which always drive me out in a storm and 
make me long for a boat and the open sea, 




and partly trying to find or lose myself — 
I don't know which — in the darkness and 
uproar of a wilderness night. <rzy* //? 

One of our greatest philosophers 
has analyzed the human soul in his 
own way and finds that it consists at each 
moment of a single impression, which van- 
ishes into another even as you find it ; so 
that a man is not even like a drop in a river, 
but like a point between top and bottom 
over which an endless succession of drops 
passes constantly day and night. And his 
soul, he thinks, is like that point of space 
with single impressions flowing over it con- 
tinually. Strange as it may seem, it was just 
to find myself, to know what that elusive 
thing is which at each moment constitutes 
a man, that I had left Simmo sleeping 
philosophically while I wandered out into 
the night. 

Farther and farther into the forest I drifted, 
till the roar of the smitten lake was utterly 
lost in the nearer roar of the struggling woods. 
The great trees groaned and cracked at the 
strain ; the rain rushed over innumerable 



224 



OYz 




leaves with the sound of a waterfall; the 
gale rumbled and roared over the forest, 
yr^ hooting in every hollow tree and 
whining over every dry stub, and sud- 
denly "the voices" began wildly to 
whoop and yell. 

I know not how to explain this curious 
impression of human voices calling to you 
from the stormy woods or the troubled river. 
Some men feel it strongly, while others 
simply cannot understand it. I have been 
waked at night in my tent by a man new to 
the wilderness, who insisted that somebody 
was in trouble and shouting to us from 
the rapids; and then I have waked another 
man lying close beside me, who listened and 
who heard nothing. To-night the delusion 
was startling in its vivid reality; above the 
roar of the gale and the rush of the rain a 
multitude of wild human voices seemed to 
be laughing, wailing, shrieking, through the 
woods. 

In the intense blackness of the night, 
wherein eyes were utterly useless, I pres- 
ently lost the old road, blundered along 



through the woods and underbrush, and then 
stood still among the great trees, — which 



225 



I could not see, though my hands 



touched them on every side, — try- 
ing to lose or to find myself in the 
elemental uproar and confusion. Curiously 
enough, a man loses all memory, all ambi- 
tion, all desire, at such a time. An over- 
whelming sense of fear rushes over you at 
first ; but that only marks the contrast be- 
tween your ordinary and your present sur- 
roundings, and the feeling passes speedily 
into a sense of exultation, as life stirs wildly 
and powerfully within you in answer to the 
uproar without. Presently you become just 
a part of the big struggling world, an atom 
in the gale, a drop rushing over the leaves 
with a multitude of other drops. That also 
is only a momentary impression, the curious 
inner reflection of the storm without, as if 
a man were only a looking-glass in which 
the world regarded itself. Soon this feeling 
also passes with the fear, and then, deep in 
your soul, the elemental power that makes 
you what you are wakens and asserts itself, 



cHfmself 




226 



<n-fL 




telling you in the sudden stillness that you 
are not an atom, not a drop, not a part of the 
,- world, but something radically and 
absolutely different, and that all the 
change and confusion and struggle 
of the universe can never touch or harm 
you in the least. And then, for the first 
time, you really find yourself. 

Thinking only of the first feeling, of fear, 
your imagination peoples the unseen world 
with demons or hostile forces. Thinking of 
the second, you become pantheistic, regard- 
ing your little life as part of the big whole, — 
a drop gathered for an instant out of the 
ocean, a grain quarried from the side of 
the great mountain. Thinking of the third, 
you become a man, strong and personal and 
responsible, knowing yourself to be son or 
brother of the God who owns the world, 
sharing his power and knowledge. So that 
the long spiritual history of the race, with 
its endless struggle and slow growth from 
fear to faith, is all lived over again in that 
brief moment when you wander out alone 
at night into the stormy woods to find 
yourself. 




'A little white-throated sparrow nestled close 
against the stem of a fir " 




I had vaguely felt all this, which can 
never be analyzed or described, when I was 
brought back from the elemental to czjfmcg^Jf 
the present world by discovering with 
a shock that I did not know where to 
turn to find my camp. I had started to go 
back when I blundered into a dense fir- 
thicket that I had not passed before, and I 
knew instantly that I had lost my direc- 
tion. The wind was east, but it whirled 
high over the trees where I could not locate 
its source, and the sound of the waves, only 
a few hundred yards away, was utterly lost in 
the uproar of the wind and the rain. In the 
midst of the fir-thicket I stopped and took 
out my compass and steadied it. Then, under 
shelter of my poncho, I struck a match. As 
the light flared up there was a stir close 
beside my head, which was not the wind, and 
which made me forget instantly what I 
wanted to know\ In the moment's glare I 
saw him plainly, a little white-throated spar- 
row, nestled close against the stem of a fir, 
with a branch drooping over him to shield 
him from the rain. The match blew out, 



230 



<THh 




leaving the world in blacker darkness than 
ever before. Then, out of the wild storm, 
~ out of the very heart of the night, a 
glad little song rippled forth: I'm 
here, sweet Killooleet, lillooleet, lilloo- 
leet, to tell me that mine was not the only 
life that had lost or found itself in the 
solitude. 

He, too, had been alone in the vast, ele- 
mental confusion. Darkness had wrapped 
him about; the gale roared over his head; 
the rain rushed like a river over innumerable 
leaves. And he had slept quietly on his twig 
under his bending fir-tip, unmindful of it all. 
The sudden light had wakened him, and in 
the first moment he had proclaimed just one 
thing, — small enough, it may be, but still the 
only little thing in a vast, dark, stormy world 
of which he was perfectly sure, — himself. 




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